Gallatin AI's $50 million raise far outpaces its federal dollars on record

Badland Batteries, a subsidiary of drone battery maker Packet Digital, opened its battery cell plant in Fargo, N.D., on Oct. 8.^{1, 4–5} The facility will manufacture lithium-ion cells, from electrode manufacturing through formation and aging, and Badland will be able to assemble packs at its facility a mile away.^{1, 6} The company says it has the capacity to increase production based on industry growth.¹

Badland called the opening the completion of the building.¹ When Packet Digital announced the factory in April 2024, it aimed to make cells for customers by the end of 2025.⁵ In April 2026, Packet Digital said cell production would begin that year; on Sept. 23, Badland put the start in October.^{2, 4} The company's Oct. 8 release says the plant will manufacture cells, without saying production has begun or naming a customer.¹

North Dakota's Clean Sustainable Energy Authority made a $17.4 million award toward the plant.⁵ Chief Executive Terri Zimmerman said the company invested nearly $100 million.^1–2

Navy money runs through the project. After a Navy contract phase covering plant design and construction, the company announced in May that it was awarded $9.8 million for Phase 3.³ In April it announced a $27 million Small Business Innovation Research Phase III contract from the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division to scale cell manufacturing.⁴

Kapta Space, a Seattle developer of spaceborne radar payloads, announced the $24 million round on Friday, Oct. 9, with Bison Ventures as co-lead. Kapta says the money will help it scale production to support multiple classified moving target indication (MTI) contracts it secured earlier this year. The round brings its total funding to $30 million.¹

The technology it wants to produce has a public research trail. In July 2023, DARPA funded a $1.7 million Direct to Phase II Small Business Innovation Research contract for a steerable X-band metasurface antenna.^2–3 The award's abstract set out to develop spaceborne radar imaging and MTI sensor technology.² USAspending lists the work, which ended in July 2025, as a "Space Metamaterial Electronically Scanned Array," matching the name of Kapta's MESA architecture.^{1, 3}

Conventional radar payloads, Kapta says, have been too costly and complex to deploy across large satellite constellations. MESA is designed to deliver advanced radar performance at significantly lower cost, power and manufacturing complexity than traditional active electronically scanned arrays, the company says.¹

Washington Harbour is a Washington, D.C., private investment firm whose investments run from growth equity to control buyouts. Mina Faltas, its founder and chief executive, said the firm believes MESA's combination of performance, cost and scalability will make Kapta "a foundational supplier to the next generation of U.S. and allied space architectures."¹