BREAKER RAISES $9M IN SEED ROUND TO SOLVE DEFENCE’S AUTONOMOUS ORCHESTRATION PROBLEM

Australian defence technology startup Breaker has raised AUD $9 million in seed funding led by global venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners, with follow-on investment from Main Sequence. This round comes less than 12 months after Main Sequence led Breakers' pre-seed round, during which time Breaker established their US HQ in the technology hub of Austin, Texas. This seed funding will be used to drive the development and adoption of their AI agent software.

Breaker Founders CTO Vanja Videnovic, Co-CEOs Matthew Buffa and Michael Irwin

Breaker's platform-agnostic software allows military operators to coordinate teams of autonomous systems across air, land and sea with their voice.

"The operator bottleneck is one of the ADF's most expensive capability gaps," says Matthew Buffa, Co-Founder of Breaker. 

"Today, autonomy still means one operator controlling one robot, with remote controls or laptops, which significantly limits the number of autonomous systems that can be deployed. 

"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 operator's intent into machine action. This allows operators to stay focused on their mission, whether driving a truck or flying a helicopter.

"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."

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 and is three times larger than the median Australian seed round. 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 technologies have been tried and tested worldwide, including successful demonstration contracts with both the United States Special Operations Command and Defence Science and Technology Agency Singapore.

Demo with Rheinmetall

Breaker recently completed a joint demonstration with Rheinmetall Defence Australia at its Australian test facility, integrating Breaker's AI agent software into the Boxer armoured vehicle's mission systems.

"This demonstration shows how Breaker's AI agent can be seamlessly integrated at the tactical edge in complex warfighting environments, when coupled with a modern and open digital systems architecture such as the Boxer CRVs," says Adam Henrichs, Director of Advanced Development at Rheinmetall Australia.

"By integrating Breaker's software into Boxer, operators were able to task an uncrewed aerial system for forward reconnaissance using simple, intent-based voice commands while continuing to operate the vehicle, without the need for major changes to the Boxer's existing design."

"It's a strong example of how collaborative innovation by industry can accelerate capability development, and we look forward to progressing this work toward full integration."

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

Avalon demo in an extraction mission: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr4rs1gQt58

About Breaker

Breaker is an Australian defence 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 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/

Media contact: Samara@houseofkitch.com.au