Cortado Ventures recently invested in Purple Rhombus. Based in Austin, Texas, Purple Rhombus is an aerospace and defense company that designs, builds, and delivers low-cost unmanned aircraft systems engineered for mass production. The company is led by Chief Executive Officer Mike Benitez.
Purple Rhombus’s manufacturing approach uses tool-path verified sheet-metal processes that draw on existing factory infrastructure and the U.S. industrial base, allowing the company to produce unmanned aircraft at volume and low cost rather than through bespoke tooling or extended factory buildouts. The company builds a family of systems on a shared modular design, each centered on a modular payload bay and configurable nose section with payload changes that are fast, repeatable, and performed in the field. Across the platforms, a common digital backbone integrates with mission systems including ATAK, MAVLink, and Starlink, while open, software-defined interfaces support collaborative autonomy, distributed operations, and real-time targeting.
The company’s two primary platforms address different mission profiles. The Grackle is a Group 2 attritable UAS purpose-built for the 100-mile, 100-minute mission, with 880 cubic inches of internal mission space. It supports one-person, tool-free assembly and flight-ready operation in under five minutes, and conventional or rail launch allows it to be employed as either an attritable or recoverable system across ISR, kinetic, electronic warfare, and training missions. The PR-2 is a Group 3 attritable platform purpose-built for the 300 to 700 mile mission, extending the same modular design to longer-range effects at a lower cost than traditional systems and giving planners a way to field massed, attritable long-range capability.
This investment reflects Cortado’s focus on aerospace and defense and on companies whose growth strengthens the Midcontinent’s industrial base. Purple Rhombus pairs a defense application with a manufacturing model rooted in established American production capacity, an approach that aligns with Cortado’s regional strategy and its emphasis on sectors where the Midcontinent holds durable advantages.
In related news, Purple Rhombus has marked two recent milestones:
- In January 2026, the company was awarded an SBIR Phase III contract from AFWERX, the innovation arm of the U.S. Air Force, under which it will deliver an initial tranche of 50 Group 2 attritable unmanned aerial systems to multiple units across the Department of War for integration and operational experimentation. That award builds on a prior SBIR Phase II project that validated Manufacturing Readiness Level 9 production methods.
- In June 2026, Grackle was added to the Defense Contract Management Agency’s Blue UAS Cleared List, confirming compliance with federal cybersecurity and supply chain standards and enabling direct procurement by the Department of War and other federal agencies.
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Cortado Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in ambitious, growth-driven companies, backing a new generation of economic prosperity for the Midcontinent region, defined as Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Colorado, Kansas and New Mexico. As one of the largest VC funds in Oklahoma, Cortado’s focus is on tech companies bringing innovative solutions to the frontier, space, energy and logistics, life sciences, and the future of work sectors.
For more information, visit cortado.ventures.