The latest injection of capital, completed in less than two weeks, sets a record for follow-on fundraising by a defense-tech startup in Africa’s young security-technology sector.  

The new round was led again by Lux Capital, a repeat investor, and included continued backing from 8VC, Nova Global, and Silent Ventures.

Joining as new investors were Belief Capital, Tofino Capital, and Resilience17 Capital, the latter an investment vehicle founded by Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga Agboola, as well as high-profile angel backers including Jordan Nel and actor Jared Leto.  

Terra said it will deploy fresh capital to scale up manufacturing operations, accelerate deployments in Nigeria and other African markets, and recruit senior engineers and business leaders in hubs across Africa, London, and San Francisco.  

“Africa is industrializing faster than any other region,” said Nathan Nwachuku, co-founder and chief executive officer of Terra.

“But none of that progress will matter if we don’t solve the continent’s greatest Achilles’ heel, which is insecurity and terrorism.”

This emphasis on inherent security challenges frames the company’s strategy of locally built defense systems tailored to the continent’s contexts.  

Terra’s rapid follow-on raise stands out in the African startup ecosystem, where it is more common for young firms to wait many months or even years between financing rounds, and where securing follow-on capital can be especially difficult, especially in deep-tech niches.  

Launched in 2024 by Nwachuku and Maxwell Maduka, Terra integrates hardware and software by producing autonomous drones, sentry towers and unmanned ground vehicles linked through its proprietary software platform, ArtemisOS.

This integrated system is designed to detect and respond to threats in real time across air, land and, in the future, maritime environments. 

The company says its technology is already protecting infrastructure assets valued at about $11 billion, and that it has secured contracts worth tens of millions of dollars in multiple African nations.

The founders position Terra not merely as a hardware supplier but as an emerging “defense prime”, combining vertically integrated production with advanced software.