The Defense Innovation Unit today announced the five companies receiving a $10,000 cash prize for their scalable, adaptable, lethal payloads for small drones.

The Lethality Prize Challenge winners -- technologies developed by Bravo Ordnance, Kela Technologies, Kraken Kinetics, Mountain Horse Solutions and Northrop Grumman -- will be highlighted to all Drone Dominance Gauntlet II participants as part of a preferred munitions solutions list, DIU stated in a LinkedIn post naming the winners this morning.

The challenge -- which the Defense Department launched in early April -- is separate from the $1 billion Drone Dominance Program. The challenge goal was to identify affordable, scalable, modular lethal-payload solutions that could be prepared for integration with platforms during Gauntlet II -- the DDP demonstration event expected to take place in August that concludes Phase II of the four-phase drone program.

Submissions for Phase II closed May 8, but applicants have until May 29 to complete the video portion of their submissions.