When Nathan Nwachuku shut down his edtech startup after five years of grinding, he was only 22 but already convinced of one thing: Africa was on the brink of an industrial leap. Capital was flowing in, infrastructure projects were multiplying, and a young, ambitious population was pushing into technology and manufacturing. Yet, as he watched the continent’s progress, one threat loomed larger than any other in his mind: insecurity.
Africa records more terror-related deaths than any other region in the world. Insurgencies, banditry, piracy, and sabotage of critical infrastructure have become a drag on growth, scaring off investors and destabilizing communities. For Nwachuku, the realization was stark. If Africa could not secure its own resources and infrastructure, the much-discussed “African century” might never materialize.
Out of that concern came Terra Industries, a defense technology company founded by Nwachuku and his friend, 24-year-old engineer and former naval technologist Maxwell Maduka. Their mission is unapologetically ambitious: to build Africa’s first modern defense prime, a homegrown company capable of designing and manufacturing advanced autonomous systems to protect the continent’s most critical assets.
Terra has now emerged from stealth with an $11.75 million funding round led by 8VC, the venture firm founded by Joe Lonsdale and known for backing frontier defense and security technologies. Other investors include Valor Equity Partners, Lux Capital, SV Angel, Nova Global, and a slate of Africa-focused backers such as Tofino Capital, Kaleo Ventures, and DFS Lab. The company had previously raised an $800,000 pre-seed round and attracted heightened interest after a high-profile media appearance brought its work to a wider audience.
For a pair of Gen Z founders, the scale of their ambition is matched by the seriousness of the team they have assembled. Around 40 percent of Terra’s engineers previously held similar roles in the Nigerian military, bringing direct operational experience from one of the continent’s most battle-tested armed forces. 8VC partner Alex Moore, who specializes in defense investing, sits on the company’s board. Nigeria’s Vice Air Marshal Ayo Jolasinmi serves as an advisor, lending strategic and doctrinal insight. Maduka himself served as an engineer in the Nigerian Navy and founded a drone company at 19, giving him early exposure to unmanned systems and their battlefield applications.
From its base in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, Terra is building what it calls a multi-domain defense architecture. The company’s systems are designed to monitor and protect infrastructure from the air, on land, and eventually at sea. In the air, Terra develops both long-range and short-range drones capable of persistent surveillance and rapid response. On the ground, it deploys surveillance towers and unmanned ground vehicles to patrol perimeters, detect intrusions, and track suspicious movements. Offshore and underwater capabilities are in development, with a focus on safeguarding oil and gas platforms, subsea pipelines, and other maritime assets that are frequent targets for theft and sabotage.
At the core of this ecosystem is ArtemisOS, Terra’s proprietary software platform. ArtemisOS ingests data from drones, towers, cameras, sensors, and other sources, then analyzes and synthesizes that information in real time. When the system detects a potential threat, it can alert security forces, trigger automated responses, and provide a live operational picture to decision-makers. The goal, as Nwachuku puts it, is nothing less than to “geofence all of Africa’s critical infrastructure and resources” so that every mine, power plant, pipeline, and port is under constant, intelligent watch.
In Nwachuku’s view, the problem facing African states is not simply a lack of weapons or soldiers. Many militaries on the continent already possess significant firepower. What they lack is sovereign intelligence: the ability to independently gather, process, and act on high-quality data about threats within their own borders and territorial waters. For decades, African governments have relied heavily on intelligence and surveillance support from Western countries, China, and Russia. That dependence, he argues, leaves them strategically vulnerable and often slow to respond.
Terra’s answer is to build an indigenous intelligence and defense layer that is owned, operated, and continuously improved by Africans. “We want to take the defense of our continent’s resources and infrastructure into Africa’s own hands,” Nwachuku says. He describes Terra as the first truly Pan-African defense company, one that intends to serve multiple countries and operate across borders rather than being tied to a single national military-industrial complex.
The company has already begun to prove that its model can generate both impact and revenue. Terra recently secured its first federal contract, though it has not disclosed which government awarded it or the scope of the work, citing security sensitivities. On the commercial side, Terra sells its systems to private operators of critical infrastructure, such as mining companies and power producers, and then charges an annual fee for data processing, storage, and ongoing software services.
