Pre-seed round backed exclusively by Canadian investors including Garage Capital and Golden Ventures.
Ottawa-based Dominion Dynamics is capitalizing on Canada's defense technology growth with $4 million in pre-seed funding.
“We didn't have [Canadian] a company built from the ground up to deliver cutting-edge capabilities at cutting-edge speeds.”
Elliot Pence
Dominion Dynamics
The pre-seed was raised through a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE) and was backed almost exclusively by Canadian investors with participation from Golden Ventures, Garage Capital, Afore Capital, Side Door Ventures and strategic angel investors. Although Afore and Side Door are American firms, the partners who led their investments are Canadian, Dominion founder Eliot Pence told BetaKit. The only two American investors in the round, Pence's family and friends, contributed less than $50,000, he added.
While the Canadian pre-sowing investment activity As the downturn continued this year, Dominion raised funding within five months of its founding in June. The company intends to raise another round of funding to increase its headcount from fewer than 10 employees to about 40 by the end of the first quarter of 2026, Dominion Chief Operating Officer Mitch Carkner told BetaKit. last month.
The Dominion Dynamics platform integrates off-the-shelf sensors on land, sea, air and space into a data structure for coordination and exchange of data across adjacent networks. The company is focused on the Arctic, where melting ice has opened up new tempting trade routes this place is Canada constant monitoring over the region is in question. Last month the Dominion struck three-year partnership with the Arctic Training Center in Whitehorse to develop and test its systems in “extreme” conditions.
Carkner previously told BetaKit that Dominion could create a mesh network to detect ships in the Arctic within 12 to 18 months. He said the network should cost less than the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) upgrade.
Dominion founder Pence is a native of Victoria, British Columbia. He led the global team at Anduril Industries, which grew from a US defense technology startup to a defense technology giant between 2018 and 2022. Carkner told BetaKit that Dominion will emulate Anduril's operating model by anticipating and building defense tools it believes will be needed in the future rather than waiting for specific purchase orders.
“Ultimately we plan to build a sovereign defense premier. [contractor] for Canada [that] can compete with American primes and European primes,” Carkner said.
In addition to the Canadian cap table, Dominion's advisory board is made up of prominent Canadians. The advisory board is chaired by former Conservative Party leader Erin O'Toole. He is joined by former Chief of Defense Staff General Wayne Eyre; former Deputy Chief of Defense Staff Lt. Gen. Mike Rouleau; and former PSP Investments CEO Neil Cunningham.
Dominion benefits from increased venture capital and government spending on defense technology as ongoing trade war Together with the United States, Canada has renewed its focus on its sovereign and military capabilities. The federal government has pledged to spend five percent GDP for defense by 2035, launched new agency to review military acquisitions and began encouraging banks and pension funds are investing in this sector.
“The future of Canada's defense cannot be outsourced,” Pence said in a statement. “We have the talent, the government commitment and the stakes, but we didn't have a company built from the ground up that could deliver modern capabilities at the speed of the day.”
A wave of new accelerators The push to support dual-use (civilian and military) startups is emerging across the country as the defense technology industry gets hotter. Matt Lombardi, co-founder of the Defense Innovation Network and newsletter The Icebreaker, joined the BetaKit podcast last month to explain why the sector is booming in Canada.
Image courtesy of Dominion Dynamics
