Good morning, and welcome to the new Standard & Works newsletter.
Twice a week, we'll send a short executive brief for the people building, funding, buying from, and operating America's industrial base.
Co-writing this with me is Brian D'Erario, who tracked the industrial base as one of the leaders at Tectonic Defense, Payload Space, and Ignition.
Together, we'll bring you the startup rounds, contracts, factories, and policy moves that matter for critical industries – from hardware to ships, chips, energy, biomanufacturing, and more.
Expect it Tuesdays and Thursdays, along with the weekly LinkedIn and podcast audio & video content and state-by-state analysis you've come to know us for.
We have more announcements coming soon. Thanks for being with us.
Zach
Markets
S&P 500 ETF $720.65 | flat | Large caps held near record levels in the May 4 session
Nasdaq 100 ETF $674.15 | flat | Growth stayed firm while AI infrastructure remained bid
Russell 2000 ETF $278.24 | -0.4% | Small caps lagged the broader tape
Industrials ETF $172.17 | -0.5% | Factory cyclicals softened into Tuesday prep
Aerospace & Defense ETF $216.84 | +0.3% | Defense outperformed as contract flow stayed active
Semiconductor ETF $465.70 | flat | Chip stocks were steady after last week's AI-infra news
Oil ETF $143.18 | +0.3% | Fuel risk stayed live around Hormuz
Gold ETF $419.39 | -0.9% | Safe-haven bid cooled
Copper ETF $35.85 | -1.0% | Industrial metals eased
U.S. natural gas ETF $10.96 | +2.3% | Gas moved higher with power demand in focus
10-Year Treasury 4.41% | +9 bps w/w | Rates firmed with oil and inflation risk
ISM Manufacturing PMI 52.7 | flat m/m | Orders grew while employment contracted
The Lead
The Florence of Hard Tech strikes again.
Launchpad Build AI, a manufacturing AI startup operating from Edinburgh and El Segundo, opened its U.S. headquarters at 1330 E Franklin Avenue and put a Manufacturing Language Model at the center of the company. The product is meant to turn photos, videos, or CAD inputs into automation designs, trained on production environments rather than internet text.
CEO Jon Quick gave the real reason for the move in a follow-up post: El Segundo puts Launchpad near deep tech, physical AI, manufacturing, defense tech, customers, partners, and talent. He called "The Gundo" the place where deployments will happen and where the unicorns in this space will be built.
That’s the broader shift. The first wave of AI made software teams faster because code was the cleanest surface area. Physical AI has to learn fixtures, cells, tolerances, uptime, labor, power, and the buying behavior of factories.
El Segundo is becoming the testbed for that version of AI because the customers are unusually dense: aerospace primes, defense startups, advanced manufacturers, machine shops, and founders building for the factory floor instead of the browser tab.
Headline Roundup
Defense & Space
Domino Data Lab won an up-to-$99.7 million Navy contract to expand Project AMMO, the AI model layer for underwater mine detection.
Firefly Aerospace subsidiary SciTec received a Space Force OTA agreement for Golden Dome space-based missile defense work under the $3.2 billion SBI program.
The Army awarded ERIS prototype contracts to Pacific Defense Strategies, SRC, and Herrick Technologies Laboratories for modular electromagnetic-warfare payloads.
Manufacturing & Automation
Applied Intuition and Heidelberg Materials will deploy autonomous haulage at an Australian quarry, starting with construction and mining vehicles at sites too small for legacy autonomy systems.
Bosch and Kodiak AI moved toward scaled autonomous-trucking hardware, with Bosch delivering sensors and actuation components for Kodiak SensorPods.
Maritime & Shipbuilding
Textron Systems won a DIU contract to deliver TSUNAMI uncrewed surface vessels for Navy FLEX work and three months with SOUTHCOM and Fourth Fleet.
The Navy awarded eight small vendors a $325.9 million IDIQ for up to 474 composite rigid-hull inflatable boats across a 10-year ordering period.
Peraton received a $17.4 million Navy contract with options to $90.7 million for MK 18 expeditionary unmanned systems operations and fleet support.
Energy & Materials
The NRC published a proposed Part 57 rule to create a licensing framework for microreactors and comparable low-risk reactors.
Packet Digital won a $9.8 million Navy order for battery-cell manufacturing equipment, raw materials, testing, and pilot and low-rate production runs.
Manufacturers saw ISM prices paid rise to 84.6, the 19th straight month of raw-material price increases.
Supply Chain & Freight
Drewry's World Container Index fell 1% to $2,216 per 40-foot container as of April 30, its third straight weekly decline.
Mallory Group warned Hormuz disruption is keeping landed-cost volatility high, with oil elevated, air capacity constrained, and sanctions pressure widening.
S&P Global said U.S. manufacturing PMI reached 54.5 in April, adding a second read that factory activity improved while cost pressure stayed active.
Dealbook
137 Ventures raised more than $700 million across two new funds, with recent industrial bets including Hadrian, Impulse Space, and Physical Intelligence.
ANELLO Photonics secured an additional $25 million to scale chip-scale inertial navigation for GPS-denied autonomous systems across land, air, and sea.
Linamar closed its acquisition of WinningBLW's Remscheid and Penzberg facilities, adding precision gear and warm-forging capacity.
See you back here Thursday
