Grace Ashiru
Terra Industries, a Nigerian defense technology company building autonomous security systems for African critical infrastructure, has raised an additional $22 million in funding led by Lux Capital. The extension follows an $11.75 million round closed one month earlier, bringing total funding to $34 million.
The round was completed in under two weeks. Existing investors 8VC, Nova Global, Silent Ventures, Belief Capital, Tofino Capital, and Resilience17 Capital — founded by Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga Agboola — participated in the extension alongside angel investors Jordan Nel and Jared Leto.
Founded in 2024 by Nathan Nwachuku, 22, and Maxwell Maduka, 24, Terra Industries designs and manufactures autonomous drones, sentry towers, and unmanned ground vehicles connected through ArtemisOS, the company’s proprietary software platform for real-time threat detection and coordinated response across land, air, and maritime environments. The company operates out of a 15,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Abuja, staffed primarily by African engineers.
Terra says it currently secures infrastructure assets valued at approximately $11 billion and has contracts worth tens of millions of dollars across public and private sector clients in multiple African countries.
The new capital will fund expanded manufacturing capacity, accelerated deployments in Nigeria and other African markets, and growth of engineering and business development teams across Africa, London, and San Francisco.
Much of the security infrastructure deployed across Africa has historically been sourced from Russia, China, or Western defense contractors. Terra is positioning itself as a locally-built alternative, designed around African terrain and threat conditions, with the stated goal of reducing reliance on imported systems and addressing data sovereignty concerns.
Through a partnership with AIC Steel, Terra also plans to establish a joint manufacturing facility in Saudi Arabia focused on surveillance infrastructure and security systems, its first production expansion outside Africa.
The company’s $34 million in total funding remains modest relative to comparable defense technology firms — Anduril has raised over $2.5 billion, ShieldAI approximately $1 billion, and Saronic around $830 million — but represents the largest funding total in Africa’s defense tech sector to date.
