Philly-area war robot makers Asylon and Rajant reveal plans to score military contracts
Norriston's Asylon landed an investment from Germany's Bosch. Rajant of Malvern has hired a "top secret" team to win U.S. military work.
Two Philadelphia-area robot developers who have sought more contracts from the rapidly increasing U.S. military budget have detailed growth plans with new investments.
German-based Bosch Ventures on Sept. 14 agreed to make a large new investment in Asylon, a Norristown-based robot systems maker whose products the Air Force is testing to perform automated aircraft inspections at its Warner Robins base in Georgia.
Asylon also helps run drone-based security systems for the Air Force and for civilian clients, including Citizens Bank.
Bosch Ventures says it typically spends up to $30 million to buy up to 25% of each company it targets for investment. It has not confirmed how much it has pledged to Asylon.
Bosch, which has branch offices in the U.S. and Israel, made its bet on Asylon after its Bosch Building Technologies affiliate became a user of Asylon’s DroneIQ platform.
That placed Asylon’s birdlike Guardian flying drones and DroneDog systems in position to detect and respond to intruders and other threats at Bosch’s building security and safety clients. Asylon’s DroneDog systems are typically clipped onto Boston Dynamics’ doglike Spot robots.
Even before the latest investment, the relationship with Bosch helped Asylon in “connecting traditional alarm infrastructure with autonomous robotic response,” Damon Henry, Asylon’s founder and CEO, said in a statement.
Bosch’s investment “will accelerate our path” to better production and lower costs “for some of the most demanding [clients] in the world,” he said.
By combining autonomous aerial and ground systems with intelligent software, Asylon is bringing robotics into demanding real-world environments, Ingo Ramesohl, co-managing director at Bosch Ventures, said in a statement.
Asylon’s investors include New York-based Insight Partners, Virginia-based Veteran Ventures Capital, Indiana-based Allegion Ventures, and the taxpayer-financed GO PA Fund.
Separately, Malvern-based Rajant on Sept. 14 said it had purchased Bellwether Group, a military and spy agency contractor run by the husband-and-wife team of Tim Teal, a Navy veteran and former U.S. Cyber Command and National Security Agency manager, and Shana Teal, an information scientist, based in suburban Washington, D.C.
The Teals, who have “top secret” military clearance, according to Rajant, will report to Rajant co-founder and CEO Robert J. Schena. They can help Rajant land contracts “in areas we couldn’t reach before,” Schena said in a statement. The cost of the acquisition wasn’t disclosed.
Tim Teal, now Rajant’s chief mission and capability officer, in a statement called Rajant’s technology “extraordinary,” adding that “the opportunity now is to connect those capabilities directly to mission” and “deliver capabilities that make a meaningful difference for the warfighter.
Shana Teal, who holds an information technology Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, was named Rajant’s chief scientist. Besides her career in data analytics, she has experience working within “highly cleared government environments,” Rajant said in a statement.
Rajant, founded in 2002, has developed communications systems for NFL coaches and for mines in remote areas of South America’s Andes Mountains, among other clients.
The company’s Kinetic Mesh broadband communications system was developed to operate without needing to be part of an outside communications grid.
CEO Schena told The Inquirer in 2020 that he tried to build a factory near his offices in Tredyffrin but was stymied by obstacles in local development approval.
The company instead located the factory in Morehead, Ky., and last year agreed to expand the operation.
Rajant’s investors have included Pittsburgh-based Wabtec (Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies,) Japan’s Mitsui, and Pennsylvania’s state-supported Ben Franklin Technology Partners.
