A Nigerian-founded defence technology company is expanding its manufacturing footprint in Africa and establishing its first international office in London after securing an additional $18 million, bringing its seed funding to $52 million.
Terra Industries, founded in 2024 by Nathan Nwachuku and Maxwell Maduka, is using the latest capital to scale autonomous security technology designed to protect critical infrastructure across Africa and the wider Global South.
The funding round includes continued participation from 8VC, Silent Ventures, Nova Global, Belief Capital and SV Angel, alongside new investor Norleo Space Investments and angel investor Grant Gordon. Terra plans to direct the funds towards expanding production, accelerating deployments across the Global South and strengthening its engineering, operations and business development teams.
The London office will give Terra closer access to institutions that influence global defence and infrastructure markets, while also opening a pathway to international operations and artificial intelligence talent. The company, however, intends to keep manufacturing rooted in Africa as it expands into additional international markets, with plans reaching into the Gulf, South America and South Asia.
That African manufacturing base is set to grow substantially. Terra's Pax-2 facility in Ghana is scheduled to open in the fourth quarter of 2026, following the company's 15,000-square-foot Pax-1 flagship facility in Abuja, Nigeria.
At 34,000 square feet, Pax-2 is expected to become the largest drone factory on the African continent once fully operational. Terra projects that it will reach an annual production capacity of 50,000 units across the company's aerial systems portfolio by 2028.
The expansion comes as governments and infrastructure operators across Africa and the wider Global South confront persistent threats including infrastructure sabotage, illegal mining, organised crime and terrorism.
For decades, many of these security challenges have been addressed with imported systems. Terra argues that technology developed for different operating conditions can be expensive to maintain and may not adequately reflect local terrain and operational realities. Dependence on external suppliers can also create geopolitical and supply-chain exposure while limiting local control over software and data.
The company is therefore building its systems around a different proposition: security technology developed for the environments in which it will operate and manufactured, increasingly, within the regions it is designed to protect.
Terra's technology is already deployed around power plants, mines and other nationally critical assets valued at approximately $11 billion across multiple African countries.
Its portfolio spans long-range and mid-range autonomous drones, interceptor drones, sentry towers and unmanned ground vehicles, with the systems connected through ArtemisOS, Terra's proprietary software platform. ArtemisOS supports real-time threat detection, autonomous mission planning and coordinated responses across large and difficult environments.
The company's strategy reflects its view that security operations will increasingly move beyond troop-heavy and reactive approaches towards predictive and autonomous systems capable of responding across varied terrains.
Data sovereignty forms another important part of that approach. By controlling the systems and information used to monitor critical assets, governments and infrastructure operators can strengthen their ability to identify, deter and respond to threats without being as dependent on external technology providers.
Terra is applying this model across air, land and maritime environments, serving sectors that include energy, mineral resources, urban infrastructure, maritime assets, border security and counterterrorism operations.
Nwachuku, co-founder and chief executive officer of Terra Industries, said the company's expansion is rooted in building security capabilities around the realities of the regions they are intended to serve.
“Critical infrastructure across the Global South is best protected by systems designed for these environments and built in the regions they protect. This funding lets us scale that work and deepen our manufacturing base. It also puts us in the rooms where global defense decisions are made.”
Terra describes itself as a multi-domain systems and data intelligence company building a defence prime for Africa and the Global South. Its integrated air, land and maritime systems are powered by ArtemisOS, with the company seeking to give countries across the Global South greater technological capacity to secure critical assets and infrastructure.
The company's product portfolio includes ArtemisOS, Archer VTOL, Iroko UAV, Duma UGV and Kallon. Terra works with governments, infrastructure operators and strategic partners across Africa and internationally.
With $52 million now secured at seed stage, a 34,000-square-foot facility advancing in Ghana, an established manufacturing base in Abuja and a new London presence, Terra Industries is positioning an African-built defence technology business for a wider international role while keeping the continent at the centre of its production strategy.
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