A startup called Critical Munitions Group wants to automate military munitions production and fix a critical bottleneck in the supply chain for explosive materials after raising $10.3 million in seed funding.

Today’s round was led by Overmatch Ventures and saw participation from Victory Six Advisors and Fulcrum Ventures. They’re providing the startup with the money it needs to start scaling its automated weapons manufacturing operations.

CMG is targeting what’s known as the “energetics” industry, which refers to the hazardous chemicals that make everything from cruise missiles to mortars and grenades go bang and fly toward their targets. These chemicals store massive amounts of energy that can be released extremely rapidly, and they’re used to make the explosives that detonate inside the likes of missile warheads and artillery shells. CMG also manufactures the propellants used to power missiles and the pyrotechnics for flares and primers.

The startup was founded by a team of former military officers, defense contractors and procurement specialists, who are well aware of the dangerous bottleneck in U.S. armaments production. It’s led by Chief Executive Kevin Capozzoli, who told SiliconANGLE that decades of consolidation has resulted in the energetics industry being concentrated in the hands of a small number of factories that find it impossible to scale.

The problem is that these facilities lack the “surge capacity” to scale up production when it matters, such as right now while the U.S. is engaged in a conflict with Iran. Capozzoli said this has become a strategic vulnerability that has led to the rapid depletion of America’s munitions stockpile.

CMG’s solution to this problem is to build modular, automated energetics production platforms that employ modern manufacturing techniques rather than the slow, manual processes used in existing munitions factories. But Capozzoli says he’s not trying to disrupt the legacy munitions industry. Rather, his ambition is to create what will essentially be a parallel supply chain that can quickly scale production up or down, in order to supplement the military’s traditional suppliers of energetics.

“The U.S. energetics base, from the government-owned, contractor-operated facilities to the prime contractors that depend on them, has been the backbone of American energetics for generations, and CMG was built to add capacity to that ecosystem,” Capozzoli said. “This funding accelerates our ability to bring modular, automation-ready production online as a complementary source, giving the industrial base the flexibility and surge capacity it needs.”

CMG really couldn’t have timed its announcement much better, for it comes less than a month after the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg put out an urgent memorandum, giving defense industry contractors just 21 days to come up with plans for “significantly faster, more aggressive delivery schedules.” The Pentagon is demanding a rapid expansion in munitions production, and insisting that contractors show a willingness to put “skin in the game” by making real capital investments in whatever solutions they come up with.

With today’s round, CMG finds itself in a position to answer this demand. Going forward, the plan is to immediately begin commissioning its first production platforms and expand its engineering and operations teams, Capozzoli said. At the same time, it’s nurturing closer relations with the government and defense industry and building the compliance infrastructure it needs to establish itself as a reliable contractor.

Overmatch Ventures General Partner Morgan Hitzig said CMG sits at the intersection of geopolitics and deep technology, and is poised to bridge the “enormous gap” between peacetime production and wartime consumption. “The founders are ultimately why we led this round,” he added. They bring an uncommon combination of end-user experience and operating discipline. They are the team to rebuild the arsenal we need to deter, and if necessary, defeat our adversaries.”

Photo: CMG