Terra Industries, a Nigerian defence-technology startup that builds autonomous security systems on proprietary software, has raised an additional $18 million, closing Africa's largest seed round at $52 million.

New investors Norleo Space Investments and angel investor Grant Gordon joined the round alongside existing investors 8VC, Silent Ventures, Nova Global, Belief Capital, and SV Angel.

The scale of the raise is an outlier in Africa's startup ecosystem, where venture funding has historically concentrated in fintech and defence tech remains a nascent investment category.

In a statement, Terra said the new capital will fund its first international office in London, an expansion of manufacturing capacity, accelerated deployment of its products across the Global South, and team growth across its engineering, operations, and business development departments.

The raise caps a busy year for the company. Terra raised $11.75 million in January, the largest funding round in the African defence-tech sector, and followed one month later with a $22 million round led by Lux Capital. The company has since announced a 34,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Ghana and signed a memorandum of understanding with Nigeria's Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) to establish a joint venture for the local production of defence systems. The partnership aligns with a wider policy shift in Nigeria: DICON, established in 1964, had its mandate expanded under a 2023 act that encourages the armed forces to procure locally manufactured defence equipment as part of efforts to reduce import dependence.

"Critical infrastructure across the Global South is best protected by systems designed for these environments and built in the regions they protect," said Nathan Nwachuku, co-founder and chief executive of Terra Industries. "This funding lets us scale that work and deepen our manufacturing base. It also puts us in the rooms where global defense decisions are made."

Founded in 2024 by Nwachuku and Maxwell Maduka, Terra develops autonomous systems that help governments and infrastructure operators monitor critical assets, such as power plants and mines, across land, air, and maritime environments. Its product line includes long- and mid-range autonomous drones, interceptor drones, sentry towers, and unmanned ground vehicles. The company is building against a backdrop of documented security threats to infrastructure across parts of the continent, from insurgent activity in the Sahel and piracy in the Gulf of Guinea to the pipeline vandalism and oil theft in Nigeria's Niger Delta that Nigerian officials have long cited as a drain on public revenue.

These systems are connected through ArtemisOS, Terra's proprietary software platform, which the company says enables real-time threat detection, autonomous mission planning, and coordinated responses. Terra says its technology is already deployed to protect nationally critical assets worth approximately $11 billion across several African countries. Terra is building in that market as global venture interest in defence technology climbs: the war in Ukraine has demonstrated the battlefield impact of low-cost autonomous drones, and US-based Anduril Industries has raised billions of dollars to become one of the sector's most valuable private companies.

The follow-on capital gives Terra more room to build out its infrastructure. The company noted that its London office is intended to provide access to institutions that shape global defence and infrastructure markets, as well as operations and AI talent, while manufacturing remains centred in Africa. Britain has committed to lifting its defence spending to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2027, part of a broader rise in European military budgets.

Terra already operates the 15,000-square-foot Pax-1 manufacturing facility in Abuja, Nigeria. Its second factory, Pax-2, is a 34,000-square-foot facility in Ghana that the company says will be the largest drone factory on the continent once fully operational. Pax-2 is expected to open in Q4 2026 and reach an annual production capacity of 50,000 units across Terra's aerial systems portfolio by 2028.

Beyond Ghana and Nigeria, Terra said it plans to extend its manufacturing footprint across the Gulf, South America, and South Asia.