Anduril Industries has signed an agreement to purchase Klas, its first acquisition of a tactical computing and communication firm that it said will help bolster capability offerings for programs such as the Army’s forthcoming Solider Borne Mission Command (SBMC) effort.
“Klas is the best. They build the best products on the planet for the tactical edge. And they’re a global engineering and design company that’s known for its advanced communications and computing solutions that are designed for rugged and high stakes environments,” Tom Keane, Anduril’s senior vice president of engineering, told reporters in a briefing. [Klas is] incredibly excited to be becoming part of Anduril, to be able to move faster, to do more, to build new products and to reach more customers.”
Anduril on Monday also unveiled its new Menace-T solution, the latest product in its Menace expeditionary command and control family, that utilizes Klas’ Voyager compute solution and which Keane said has already been deployed “in multiple countries around the world.”
“[Menace-T] is a compact, two-case C4 system that can be deployed by a single operator and operational in minutes. No extra cables. No integration headaches. Just compute power in the most austere locations. Menace-T is resilient and secure connectivity in a form factor small enough to carry and rugged enough to survive the field,” Anduril said in a statement.
The deal for the Dublin, Ireland-based Klas, which is Anduril’s ninth total acquisition, is going through final regulatory approval in Europe and could be finalized “in about the next 30 days,” according to Keane. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
Keane said that before deciding to acquire Klas Anduril “evaluated everyone in the marketplace.”
“This wasn’t a benchtop evaluation. It wasn’t a theoretical evaluation. We stood in the most challenging environments in the world. We stood in deserts. We stood on ships. We used all of these technologies and, quite honestly, they all failed apart from Klas,” Keane told reporters. “We expect that this acquisition will enhance Anduril’s capabilities in areas like body-worn computing, resilient communications, robust sensors that drive solutions faster.”
The acquisition of Klas will allow Anduril to extend its Lattice AI operating system “even further to the tactical edge,” Keane added.
“By unifying Anduril’s Lattice software platform, autonomy and sensor capabilities with Klas’ compute and networking infrastructure, we can deliver lightweight, mission-tailored systems that are faster to deploy, easier to maintain, and more resilient under pressure,” Anduril said in a statement. “Anduril can now adapt edge compute and comms to the specific needs of each mission, platform, or unit—reducing integration risk and getting critical tech into the hands of warfighters faster.”
Keane cited Voyager as Klas’ “flagship product,” which is already deployed on Anduril’s Menace expeditionary C4 platforms, calling it “the most powerful edge compute and communications platform out there.”
“Klas is best known for its Voyager line: a modular family of compute and networking systems built to survive extreme temperatures, jamming, dust and denied environments,” Anduril said in a statement.
The new Menace-T capability began as a concept about a year ago and Anduril had the first prototype ready about 90 days later, according to Keane, who described it as “the computing and communications platform that can power Lattice wherever you want to deploy Lattice.”
“Menace-T has enabled real-time targeting data relay, been deployed in ground vehicles, maritime vessels and more. It’s proven effective in joint environments, coalition operations, and austere conditions where traditional systems can’t operate,” Anduril said.
Keane told reporters he could not disclose where Menace-T has been deployed, only that it’s been used in “multiple countries across multiple hemispheres.”
“And we’ve also deployed it across multiple modalities. So we’ve deployed it in many different vehicles, so [in] on-the-move scenarios, and we’ve deployed it in vessels at sea on the move. We’ve deployed it in aerial mobility scenarios and in human portability scenarios,” Keane said.
Klas is also currently a subcontractor on the Army’s Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) program, according to Keane, which Anduril has been set to take over as the prime contractor from Microsoft [MSFT] (Defense Daily, Feb. 11).
“As we think about IVAS, for example, and you think about groups of soldiers at the squad, at the company and the brigade level can be working together, of course there are scenarios those soldiers need to communicate with the tactical edge to send data, to receive data, to task autonomous systems and that’s a place where the Klas technology can help,” Keane said.
The Army is currently pursuing SBMC as the IVAS follow-on effort, with plans to potentially award prototype agreements in late August (Defense Daily, April 11).
“We expect to do more there as part of Soldier Borne Mission Command to bring the best data to the soldier to allow that soldier to task and effect and to publish and subscribe the data,” Keane said.
Klas, which has around 150 employees, will continue operating from its facilities in Ireland and the U.S., according to Anduril, with investment banking firm Houlihan Lokey advising the acquisition deal.
“We want to expand everything that Klas is doing into many more modalities and many more environments,” Keane said. “This isn’t just about taking some existing technology. This is about expanding it pretty significantly to solve some very hard problems for the warfighter.”