Nigerian defence-tech company Terra Industries has launched a commercial division that will sell its autonomous security systems directly to privately owned infrastructure operators, expanding beyond the government and military contracts that have defined its business since 2024.

The new unit will serve companies that own power plants, pipelines, mines, ports and refineries across Africa, the Gulf, South America and South Asia — sectors that Terra says lose billions of dollars annually to theft, sabotage, organised crime and operational inefficiencies. Its autonomous air and ground systems will provide perimeter security, threat detection and large-scale inspections, coordinated through ArtemisOS, the company's proprietary operating platform. In Terra's home market, crude-oil theft and pipeline vandalism have long been documented drains on the energy sector, a problem Nigeria's state oil company and international operators have flagged for years.

"Government and military work will always be central to Terra," said co-founder and CEO Nathan Nwachuku. "But the commercial division gives us a constant flywheel of partnerships across industries, and it makes us a stronger business because it puts our technology to work for the companies actually building infrastructure across the Global South."

Ex-WHOOP and Palantir executive to lead the new unit

Terra has hired Todd Stiefler as Director of Commercial to lead the division. According to the company, Stiefler previously served as VP, Enterprise at wearables firm WHOOP, where he led business-to-business growth across government, defence and corporate wellness accounts. Before that, Terra says he worked in business development at Palantir, building go-to-market teams for Apollo and FedStart, two of Palantir's programmes aimed at defence-tech and dual-use start-ups. Palantir made that government-to-commercial crossing itself, going public in 2020 after years of US intelligence and defence work and then expanding aggressively into commercial markets.

Terra says this background positions him to open commercial markets in tightly regulated sectors and to turn early-stage technology partnerships into deployed systems.

The commercial division builds on infrastructure that Terra says it already protects across multiple African countries, including power plants and mines, with assets valued at approximately $11bn. The company has not disclosed independently audited figures for this valuation.

The launch caps a rapid stretch of expansion, and places Terra in one of venture capital's fastest-growing corners — defence-tech firms selling dual-use technology to both governments and private buyers, a cohort led by US names such as Palantir and Anduril Industries. Terra recently named former SpaceX director Ben MacWilliams as VP of Strategy, and just over a week ago closed a $52m seed round — its largest funding to date, and a notably large sum for a seed-stage raise — backed by 8VC, Silent Ventures, Nova Global, Belief Capital, SV Angel and new investor Norleo Space Investments.

The company, founded by Nwachuku and Maxwell Maduka, has said it is on track to reach more than $100m in contract bookings by the end of the year, and recently opened its first office outside Africa in London.

With the commercial division now in place, Terra is positioning private capital, not just state contracts, as the next driver of growth for autonomous security systems across the Global South. The near-term markers will be concrete: whether the new division signs and names its first private-sector customers, and whether Terra meets its stated bookings target by year-end.

Primary source: X post