Mishcon de Reya has successfully advised AI defence startup Arondite on its latest funding round.
Founded by former British Army officer, Will Blyth, Arondite aims to address the challenge of integrating systems built by different manufacturers and deployed by militaries, and then to manage the huge amounts of data they generate. Describing access to this information as "life or death", Blyth calls out the importance of developing tech that can leverage these complex webs of hardware and data.
The Mishcon de Reya team was led by Hayley Cross, Partner in the Corporate team and John Hadfield, Associate, Corporate, and included contributions from Toby McCrindle, Partner and Head of Defence Technology in the Innovation department.
Hayley Cross commented: "We are delighted to have supported Arondite on this crucial milestone. Arondite's ability to raise a £9 million seed round is a fantastic illustration of investor appetite for defence tech, as well as a strong endorsement of Will, Rob and all the team at Arondite. We are seeing more and more funding flowing into defence tech companies and for Mishcon, this transaction was a great opportunity for us to bring together our expertise in venture capital fundraising, as well as our deep tech capabilities which have been further bolstered by our recent hire of Toby McCrindle. It was a pleasure to have supported Arondite and we look forward to continuing to work together."
Edward Cassels, General Counsel at Arondite said: “It was great to have advisors who truly understand tech, venture capital dynamics, and, crucially, the commercial nuances of the defence industry. Toby and Hayley are reassuringly skilled and experienced counsel, and I enjoyed working with them and their talented, focused team.”