Fresh off a new round of funding of up to $2.5 billion, Anduril Industries, an artificial intelligence (AI) defense startup, just doubled its market valuation to $28 billion.
Anduril is a maker of autonomous weapons that include flying drones, missiles, underwater vessels and surveillance equipment for the military and other government agencies to monitor national borders and the battlefield.
The mega-investment is the latest to be funneled into defense technology startups in an increasingly receptive venture capital (VC) ecosystem after Silicon Valley shied away from such contracts.
The company, founded by Palmer Luckey – the entrepreneur behind Oculus VR and its virtual reality head-mounted display that is now part of Meta Platforms Inc. – received $1 billion as part of the new funding round from Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. [In August, Anduril raised $1.5 billion at a $14 billion valuation.]
Thiel co-founded military technology company Palantir. Vice President JD Vance, a close friend of Thiel, invested in Anduril during his career as a venture capitalist, and still holds stakes in the company, according to his filings.
A large chunk of the cash infusion is expected to go to building a $1 billion factory in central Ohio, with the goal of cranking out tens of thousands of autonomous systems and vehicles annually.
Anduril’s Lattice for Mission Autonomy is AI-enabled software that empowers teams of autonomous systems perform to missions under human supervision.
The climate for defense technology seems ripe under a new administration after years of resistance in Silicon Valley. For example, thousands of Google employees signed a letter protesting the company’s military contracts in 2018.
President Donald Trump’s administration is expected to supercharge investments like those in Anduril as it fortifies border enforcement and unleashes drones to perform those tasks. Luckey, in turn, has supported Trump since 2016 and donated to all three of his presidential campaigns while also hosting fundraisers.
Speaking of Luckey, Elon Musk said it is “very important to open DoD/Intel to entrepreneurial companies like yours.”
