Scoop: Smash leads $200M deal for defense-tech Allen Control Systems
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Years before he helped launch Disney+, or helped the Mouse buy Marvel and Star Wars, Kevin Mayer studied mechanical engineering at MIT and spent time working on battlefield radar systems and signal processors.
- Now he's getting back to those roots.
Driving the news: Smash Capital, the venture firm Mayer co-founded in 2021, has led a $200 million Series B round for autonomous turret maker Allen Control Systems at a $2.2 billion post-money valuation.
- Smash also has hired David Urban, a Trump campaign advisor and K Street vet, as an operating partner.
Zoom in: Mayer formed Smash with other Disney vets and former investors from Insight Partners (including Paul Szurek, who sourced the ACS deal).
- It raised $837 million for its debut fund and then another $840 million for a series of SPVs that allowed it to write larger checks. Word is that Smash is raising around $2 billion for Fund II, with plans to also continue the SPV strategy.
- Most of the portfolio is in software and media, including Eleven Labs, Epic Games, and Bilt.
- Smash perhaps is best known for its efforts to shake up college football broadcasting rights, which Urban will help shepherd in Congress.
Zoom out: A throughline from Disney is the importance of brands, whether touching millions of end users or being used to sell to defense primes and governments.
Defense deal: Austin-based ACS says it currently has over $120 million of U.S. government contracts to make different variants of its flagship Bullfrog product.
- A lot of that is for the version with a 40-pound gun that can shoot down drones, as bullets remain the cheapest way to fight UAVs that have become military game-changers in both Ukraine and Iran.
- But some is for different effectors designed by third parties, including lighter ones like lasers and sensors. In short, the Bullfrog is becoming a platform.
- "The unmanned gimbal is the new soldier," explains ACS CEO Mike Wior, who adds that return backers on the new funding round include Craft Ventures, Rally Ventures, and Inspired Capital.
The bottom line: Defense-tech investing just got even more crowded.
