Backed by $26 million in pre-seed and seed funding, Dominion Dynamics plans to advance its technology aimed at defending the Canadian Arctic, hire hundreds more engineers, and open a 25,000-square-foot factory in Kanata.
On Monday, the Ottawa-based defence-tech startup announced that it had raised $21 million in seed funding, which it will use to accelerate the deployment of “Auranet,” a network of sensors and autonomous systems designed to monitor Canada’s northern frontier, as well as a drone designed to pair with fifth-generation fighter jets.
The seed round was led by Georgian, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners and British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI), and is one of the largest early-stage investments in the defence sector, according to a news release from Dominion, which has raised $26 million in total since launching last year.
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‘Prenup of business law’: Reasonable expectations in shareholder disputes
The scenario: You’re a 60 per cent shareholder. Your business partner holds the other 40 per cent. And you’ve just found a third party who wants to buy you out.
‘Prenup of business law’: Reasonable expectations in shareholder disputes
The scenario: You’re a 60 per cent shareholder. Your business partner holds the other 40 per cent. And you’ve just found a third party who wants to buy you out.
The company was founded by Eliot Pence, a general partner at Washington, D.C.-based Tofino Capital who previously spearheaded U.S. defence firm Anduril Industries’ international expansion from 2018 to 2022.
Since its launch, Dominion has produced a network of sensors that allow Canadian Rangers to transit data from regions that lack communications infrastructure such as cellphone towers. The firm specializes in small devices similar to Apple AirTags that can be attached to cellphones and cameras. The sensors capture data such as videos and voice notes and send it to armed forces members at nearby bases, where software can then create a 3D map of rangers’ movements in real time.
“We are building systems that can scale, talk to each other, and be risked in combat,” said Pence in Monday’s release. “Future deterrence will depend on speed of fielding, economic advantage, and the ability to operate across domains.”
The company has completed successful field trials in northern Ontario and is currently deployed in the Yukon, validating its systems for use by Canada and NATO partners.
“Defence is no longer just about hardware; it is about software, data, and speed,” said Margaret Wu, lead investor at Georgian, in Monday’s release. “In our view, Dominion Dynamics represents the future of the Canadian ecosystem: deep tech, dual-use, and mission-critical. We are backing a team that is fundamentally reimagining how Canada and its allies protect their interests.”
Last October, Pence told OBJ that his company has been taking a “different approach to the market” by proactively identifying problems and solving them in the hope that customers will buy in, versus waiting for the defence establishment to come to it with requests for proposals.
“It doesn’t get us involved in long, bureaucratic processes and requirements writing,” Pence explained at the time. “We just want to show things and have the government say, ‘Yeah, we like this or we don’t like this.’ And we’re willing to take that risk. If we wait for an RFP, we’ll die. We’re venture-backed. We have to land and expand rapidly.”
Dominion has brought some heavy-hitting advisers on board, including former Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole, former chief of defence staff Wayne Eyre and former CEO of Public Sector Pension Investments Board Neil Cunningham.
With the funding in place, Dominion says it is “actively hiring engineering and operational talent in Ottawa and Toronto as it ramps up nationwide recruitment, aiming to bring on five times more engineers across Canada.”
The company plans to open a new development office in Toronto and a 25,000-square-foot factory in Kanata, while expanding its XLabs programs to additional universities.
