HTG expands US and European defence team, ready to pursue new contracts
Our defence tech Investment Harvest Technology Group (ASX: HTG) just extended its international execution capability across two priority defence markets - the US and EU.
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HTG announced what its calling “Plan Consilience” which starts with two key appointments:
- In the US, the independent Washington, D.C.-based advisory firm that ran HTG'sUS Market Entry Assessment (back in April) is now engaged on an ongoing basis to support HTG's US push.
- In Europe, HTG appointed Dr Oleksandra Molloy - a specialist in uncrewed and autonomous systems - as Defence Strategic Advisor to lead its push across European defence, government and critical infrastructure.
The US matters because it's the biggest addressable market for anything in the defence tech space.
As for the EU - the war in Ukraine has put drone warfare and drone connectivity as a top priority for EU contractors.
A reminder that this is a problem that Nodestream is built to solve.
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HTG is currently going through the process to get its tech Brave1 accreditation, which is Ukraine's Government-backed defence-tech cluster (testing foreign vendors in real battlefield conditions).
If the tech gets approved, it can be added to the platform which acts a bit like Amazon (but for the battlefield), it allows the tech to be purchased and deployed quickly into action.
It's still early days for HTG at this point but we see it as another step in the right direction for HTG to be in a better position to start landing contracts.
We covered that in a deep dive recently here: HTG: Appoints new CEO (ex Raytheon, Optus Space & Satellite) to accelerate defence strategy
What does HTG do?
HTG's Nodestream tech keeps mission-critical video, voice and data flowing over the thinnest, most degraded or jammed comms link.
It uses around 90% less bandwidth and works across satellite, cellular or radio (or any combination), whatever it takes to get a message through.
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That is a problem that's becoming more important on a battlefield dominated by unmanned drones, robots and vehicles.
All of which the enemy is trying to scramble and cut connectivity too…
HTG’s tech is already commercially proven with a TRL 9 rating - the US Department of Defence's highest "deployed and proven in operations" readiness level, backed by >500,000 operational hours of commercial use.
HTG is now pivoting that proven technology into defence, aiming to convert trials, tests and early orders into materially larger paid contracts.
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We are Invested to see HTG pivot its commercially tried, tested and revenue generating “communications link resilience” tech to sell into the defence space…
The 8 Reasons We Invested in HTG
Here are the key reasons why we are Invested from our HTG Investment Memo - you can see our launch note from 3 weeks ago here which include the expanded reasons and more: Our New Investment: Harvest Technology Group (ASX: HTG)
- HTG’s tech enables remotely operated and unmanned drones, robots, boats, submarines and vehicles
- We are backing the defence focused team
- Tired, stale shareholder base means opportunity for new Investors like us
- HTG’s tech has >500,000 operational hours and is TRL 9 certified.
- Full focus moving to defence
- HTG already has defence market traction
- ASX listed peer has gone from 30c to $7 per share on defence pivot
- Small $18M market cap - leveraged to a re-rate
What we want to see next from HTG?
🔄 Land a major US or NATO defence contract
- ✅ CEO hire (done - Veronica Bainton appointed)
- 🔄 CFO hire
- 🔄 Convert the existing NATO defence-force trial into a paid contract
- 🔲 Sign a follow-on order with the existing Five-Eyes customer at a materially larger size
- 🔲 Contract with US defence contractors
- 🔲 Contract with EU defence contractors
🔄 Brave1 accreditation & Ukraine live deployment
- 🔄 Secure Brave1 accreditation
- 🔲 Deploy HTG's tech into a live Ukrainian defence-tech use case
- 🔲 Publish independent benchmarking results from Brave1 testing
