Terra Industries, a two-year-old Nigerian company building drones and surveillance systems to guard mines, power plants and pipelines, has raised $18 million, closing its seed round at $52 million. The company will use the money to open its first international office, in London, and expand manufacturing across Africa.
The round adds to a striking funding pace. Terra emerged from stealth in January with an $11.75 million round led by Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC, the venture firm co-founded by the Palantir billionaire. That climbed to $34 million weeks later in a bridge round led by Lux Capital, at what the company’s chief executive described as a nine-figure valuation.
A Bet on Homegrown Hardware
Terra was founded in 2024 by Nathan Nwachuku and Maxwell Maduka, both in their early twenties. Nwachuku spent five years in education technology before concluding that Africa’s industrial boom would be undercut by persistent security threats.
The company’s pitch: governments and mine or refinery operators have long relied on imported surveillance systems that are costly to maintain and expose users to foreign supply chains and data control.
Terra’s product line includes long- and mid-range drones, interceptor drones, surveillance towers and ground robots, tied together by ArtemisOS, its proprietary threat-detection software. The company says it develops its own software, airframes, propellers and battery packs, with more than 70 percent of its components sourced locally — a claim that distinguishes it from firms that simply assemble imported parts.
That hardware already protects roughly $11 billion worth of infrastructure across eight African countries and Canada, according to the company, including power plants and lithium and gold mines.
Building the Continent’s Largest Drone Factory
Terra’s flagship factory sits in Abuja, Nigeria — the largest drone manufacturing facility in Africa, per the company.
A second plant, in Accra, Ghana, is due to open in the fourth quarter and will eventually surpass it: at 34,000 square feet, with a targeted annual capacity of 50,000 units by 2028, making it the continent’s largest.
The London office is meant to put Terra closer to institutions that shape global defense procurement and investment, while keeping manufacturing on the continent. It’s a familiar move for the company: it previously said it planned outposts in San Francisco and East Africa, and in February signed a joint venture with Nigeria’s state-owned Defence Industries Corporation to localize production further.
A Crowded, Fast-Moving Field
Terra’s rise is unusually fast, even by startup standards. Three funding announcements in seven months — January, February and now August — have taken it from an $11.75 million seed to $52 million, drawing in defense-focused investors including some tied to Flutterwave co-founder Olugbenga Agboola.
The speed has prompted comparisons to the venture capital rush around U.S. defense-tech firms like Anduril, and 8VC’s Alex Moore, who also sits on Palantir’s board, has joined Terra’s.
That pace raises questions the company’s statements don’t fully answer. Terra has not disclosed a valuation for this round, nor specified how much of the $18 million is earmarked for London operations versus manufacturing.
The company also did not name specific government contracts underpinning its $11 billion infrastructure-protection figure, a number it has repeated across multiple funding announcements without new verification.
Terra has also moved to address a talent shortage, partnering with universities to train engineers, and its executives have argued that indigenous defense manufacturing is a matter of sovereignty, not just cost.
Nigeria’s House of Representatives has separately called for a national drone industrialization policy, suggesting lawmakers see the same opportunity — and the same gap in state support — that Terra is racing to fill.
Whether Terra can scale manufacturing as fast as it raises capital, and whether African governments will commit to long-term contracts with a two-year-old company over established foreign suppliers, remains to be tested.
