BREAKER RAISES $6M IN SEED ROUND TO SOLVE DEFENSE'S AUTONOMOUS ORCHESTRATION PROBLEM

AUSTIN, Texas and SYDNEY, Feb. 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Austin-based defense technology startup Breaker has raised $6 million in seed funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners with follow-on investment from Australian venture firm Main Sequence who also led Breakers' pre-seed round. The round will accelerate the development and deployment of Breaker's AI agent software that enables military operators to control teams of autonomous systems across air, land and sea with voice commands. The aim is to solve defense's autonomous vehicle orchestration problem. 

Defense technology has been advancing more in the past 24 months than in the previous three decades, with the United States continuing to prioritize defense innovation to maintain its global leadership and national security. A recent Executive Order prioritizes strengthening of America's military edge by delivering state‐of‐the‐art capabilities at speed and scale.

In January 2026 the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Unit launched the $100M Autonomous Orchestrator Challenge, publicly identifying one of the hardest problems in modern military autonomy. Silicon Valley now recognizes that AI leadership and national security are inseparable. Breaker's platform-agnostic software allows military operators to orchestrate teams of autonomous systems across air, land and sea with their voice.

"Today, autonomy still means one operator controlling one robot, with remote controls or laptops, which fundamentally limits the number of autonomous systems that can be deployed," says Matthew Buffa, Co-Founder of Breaker.

"In this drone warfare era, the next frontier is orchestration - how to manage and coordinate robotic teams at speed, at scale and under pressure. Breaker's software changes the operator-to-robot ratio - turning small teams into force multipliers. Robots become genuine teammates that understand and deliver on the mission."

"With our tech, a single human operator simply talks to the fleet of autonomous systems over the radios they already carry. The onboard AI agent in turn responds with real-time, context-aware responses, translating the operator's intent into machine action. Allowing operators to stay focused on their mission, whether driving a truck or flying a helicopter."

Critically, Breaker's software runs entirely onboard each robot, with no reliance on cloud connectivity or external networks. When communications are jammed or denied, the agents continue operating autonomously, making mission-aligned decisions at the edge.

Top-tier backing from category-defining investor

This latest funding announcement puts Breaker in the top 25% of US seed rounds. Bessemer Venture Partners, one of the world's longest-standing venture firms, known for backing category-defining companies such as Canva, Rocket Lab, Shopify, Anthropic and Perplexity, led the round.

"As outlined in Bessemer's 2026 Defense Tech Roadmap, we are seeing a period of rapid transformation as uncrewed systems proliferate at scale," says David Cowan, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners.

"Breaker's on-robot agents will redefine how militaries deploy and manage autonomous systems. By enabling small teams to safely control large numbers of robots through intuitive, natural language interfaces, Breaker is tackling one of the hardest and most important problems in defense technology."

Breaker's product has been tried and tested worldwide, including successful demonstration contracts with both the United States Special Operations Command and Defense Science and Technology Agency Singapore.

For images/videos to accompany this release see: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13FbmuJZbDW352VTGiQnNXnwea6xFHfAq?usp=sharing

About Breaker

Breaker is a defense technology startup with HQ in Sydney, NSW, and Austin, Texas that develops software to turn any robot into truly autonomous teammates.

Existing robots demand constant human oversight, bulky equipment and complex networks - limiting their usefulness in real operations. Founded by Matthew Buffa, Michael Irwin, and Vanja Videnovic, they set out to build something different: autonomous systems that understand missions, make nuanced decisions, and operate more like teammates than blunt tools.

Backed by Bessemer Venture Partners and Main Sequence and led by a team of former Anduril, Droneshield and Hargrave Technologies engineers, Breaker is on a mission to create the robots we were promised.

https://www.breakerindustries.com/

SOURCE Breaker