Firefly Aerospace (FLY) — It completed in 4Q25 a major $855M acquisition of SciTec. SciTec is an important national security firm dealing with classified programs and is involved with defense software for data fusion and mission operations, big data processing, and missile defense, significantly boosting its capabilities for programs like the Pentagon’s Golden Dome initiative. This deal roughly doubles the revenues of FireFly and moves them from being a commercial space company to an important defense supplier. 

nLight (LASR) — A pioneer in high-power lasers for mission-critical defense systems. It has recently received a number of R&D funding contracts from DoD to explore its tech to be used on naval ships and the Golden Dome initiative. It is the only publicly listed tech firm exclusively focused on high power lasers that we have identified. It has a $2B market cap with 68% of its revenues currently from A&D although this is mostly defense related. It would not be a surprise if the technology leads to larger systems development contracts.

Both additions expand the advanced technology component of the SPADE Defense Index.