Australian defence technology startup Breaker has raised AUD $9 million in seed funding to advance development of its AI-based autonomous orchestration software for military applications.
The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with follow-on investment from Main Sequence, which previously led Breaker’s pre-seed round less than a year ago. During that period, the company established its US headquarters in Austin, Texas. The new funding will be directed toward product development and expanding adoption of its AI agent platform.
Breaker’s software is designed to enable military operators to coordinate multiple autonomous systems across air, land and sea using voice commands. The company says its platform-agnostic system translates spoken intent into machine actions via onboard AI agents embedded directly within each robot or vehicle.
Co-founder Matthew Buffa said the technology addresses what he described as an “operator bottleneck”, where traditional autonomous deployments often require one operator per system. By allowing a single operator to control multiple platforms through natural language over existing radio systems, the company aims to change the operator-to-robot ratio and enable small teams to manage larger autonomous fleets.
The software runs entirely on-device, without reliance on cloud connectivity or external networks. According to Breaker, this design enables continued operation in contested environments where communications may be jammed or denied.
The funding round places Breaker among larger early-stage defence technology raises in both the US and Australian markets. Bessemer Venture Partners, which has backed companies including Canva, Rocket Lab and Shopify, cited growing demand for scalable orchestration solutions as uncrewed systems proliferate.
Breaker has previously conducted demonstrations with the United States Special Operations Command and Singapore’s Defence Science and Technology Agency.
The company also recently completed a joint demonstration with Rheinmetall Defence Australia, integrating its AI agent software into the Boxer Combat Reconnaissance Vehicle. During the trial, operators were able to task an uncrewed aerial system for reconnaissance using voice commands while continuing vehicle operations.
Breaker said the demonstration highlighted the potential for integrating AI orchestration software into existing military platforms without significant hardware modifications.
