The funding follows a $22 million extension led by Lux Capital in February and an initial $11.75 million round in January, backed by investors including 8VC, Silent Ventures, Nova Global, Belief Capital and SV Angel, with Norleo Space Investments joining as a new investor. Terra, founded in 2024 by Nathan Nwachuku and Maxwell Maduka, makes autonomous systems including the Archer VTOL drone, Iroko quadcopter, Kallon sentry tower and Kama interceptor drone.
From African Factory to Global Offices
The most important part of the latest round may be what Terra is building around the money. The company is expanding its Pax-2 manufacturing facility in Ghana, a 34,000-square-foot site that Terra describes as Africa's largest drone factory. Once fully operational, the facility is expected to have capacity for as many as 50,000 autonomous systems a year.
That creates an unusual structure for an African technology company: manufacturing and much of the operational base remain in Africa, while commercial and government-facing operations are being developed in the US and Europe. The strategy effectively puts Africa at the centre of Terra's production plans while London, Washington and San Francisco become gateways to customers, partnerships, capital and government relationships.
That is a different ambition from building a Nigerian startup and later seeking foreign buyers. Terra is trying to build an African defence company with international reach from the start.
Washington Is the Strategic Move
The planned Washington presence could prove particularly important. The US remains the world's largest defence market, while Washington is also home to the government agencies, policymakers and contractors that influence defence procurement and partnerships.
Terra says the DC presence will support US partnerships and government engagement. Its San Francisco office will place the company closer to the technology and venture-capital ecosystem that has helped drive investment in autonomous systems. The London office provides a similar bridge into European markets. For Terra, the three-city expansion therefore appears designed less around traditional geographic growth and more around access to the institutions that can help turn an African defence manufacturer into a global company.
Building More Than Drones
Terra is also trying to avoid being defined as a drone maker. Its portfolio includes Archer, a vertical take-off and landing aircraft designed for long-range surveillance; Iroko, a smaller quadcopter; Kama, a high-speed interceptor; Kallon, a solar-powered surveillance tower; and Druma, an autonomous ground system. Its ArtemisOS software is designed to coordinate operations across its hardware.
The company says its systems already protect about $11 billion in assets, mainly in the energy and mining sectors. It also says it is on track to record more than $100 million in contract bookings by the end of 2026, with revenue in the eight-figure range.
The immediate demand is largely for persistent monitoring and autonomous surveillance of critical infrastructure and high-value sites. That gives Terra a commercial market outside military procurement, while its counter-drone and interceptor products give it a route deeper into defence.
Africa's Defence Gap Is the Opening
Terra's expansion is built around a wider argument: African countries should have greater control over the technology used to protect their borders, infrastructure and strategic assets. The company has argued that governments across Africa have historically relied on foreign defence systems from China, Europe and elsewhere, creating dependence on equipment that may be difficult to maintain locally and raising questions about control of sensitive data.
Co-founder and chief engineer Maxwell Maduka told War on the Rocks that imported Turkish and Chinese drones "are cheap and fly fine, but they are difficult to sustain locally, and do not guarantee sovereignty over software and data. There's also the worry of espionage: If your intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance backbone is still linked to these countries, and you can't audit the firmware, your operational picture is probably insecure."
Terra's vertically integrated model, combining hardware, software and manufacturing, is intended to address that problem. The company has already moved beyond Nigeria, with its Ghana factory serving as its first manufacturing operation outside the country. Terra also signed a joint venture agreement with the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria in February, strengthening domestic defence production capacity.
The company aims to sell systems beyond Africa, including in the Gulf, South America and South Asia, while keeping manufacturing in Nigeria and Ghana.
With reporting from BusinessDay, TechCrunch, The Next Web, Disrupt Africa, TechEconomy, Nairametrics and allAfrica.com.
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