Calgary’s North Vector Dynamics (NVD) has closed a Series A round of more than $29 million. The company says the money will move its CM-70 counter-drone interceptor from testing toward production.

The round values NVD at more than $126 million, the same floor the company disclosed in August when European defence group CSG took a strategic stake. NVD did not say whether the new round pushed its valuation past that figure.

Tech Horizons, a European venture fund focused on defence, security and resilience technologies, led the round. ONE9, Garage Capital, CSG, Ripple Ventures, Feld Ventures and Conconi Growth Partners also took part, along with unnamed others.

The money

NVD plans to use the funding to build out manufacturing and assembly, bring more production in-house and secure its supply chain. The company also intends to open offices in the United States and Europe and expand hiring.

Paul Ziadé, co-founder and chief executive officer of NVD, tied the raise to the jump from prototype to volume. “Allied forces need affordable, producible air defence at scale, and they need it now,” he said. “This round gives us the capital and the industrial reach to move from validation toward production volume and into Allied markets.”

The interceptor

The CM-70 is a low-cost, precision-guided missile designed to take down fast, highly manoeuvrable drones of the kind now threatening allied forces and partners in Ukraine and the Gulf. NVD describes the system as ITAR-free and built on an open architecture that can integrate with existing layered air defence networks.

Defence Research and Development Canada, an agency of the Department of National Defence, provided early funding and continues to support testing. The company says the program aligns with Canada’s Defence Industrial Strategy.

NVD’s announcement did not include unit cost, performance figures or production targets for the interceptor.

The CSG connection

Tech Horizons already knows the company. The fund backed NVD’s seed round this spring as its first European investor, and it operates through a strategic partnership with CSG, which also joined this round directly.

That gives CSG a larger presence in NVD’s investor base than a single line in the list suggests. In August, CSG announced its own strategic investment, offering industrial capacity and export market access while NVD kept Canadian ownership and control.

Matej Luhový, partner at Tech Horizons, said the founders’ ability to commercialize their research drove the fund’s original bet. “The company’s founders have successfully translated world-class research into a solution addressing one of the defining challenges of today’s battlefields: how to protect soldiers and critical infrastructure from large-scale drone and loitering munition attacks in a cost-effective manner,” he said.

The fund’s portfolio leans toward adjacent technology. It includes Firehawk Aerospace, which builds solid rocket motors and hybrid engines with 3D-printed propellant, and Occam Industries, which develops autonomy software for drones.

The team

Ziadé and chief science officer Craig Johansen, both former engineering professors at the University of Calgary, founded NVD in 2022 with Colin Hill, a specialist in rocket propulsion and aerodynamics. Retired general Tom Lawson, a former chief of the defence staff, serves as a strategic adviser.

What’s next

NVD’s longer roadmap runs from counter-drone interceptors to hypersonics. NordSpace Ventures, the investment arm of Canadian rocket-engine maker NordSpace, also holds a stake, and NVD holds a $4.2-million DRDC contract on high-speed aeropropulsion.

The near-term test is whether the capital turns into orders. The announcement names no launch customer, and the planned U.S. and European offices signal where NVD expects to find one.