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Anduril: Oculus founder’s defense tech unicorn backed by Peter Thiel nabs $1.5B funding for major manufacturing expansion

Anduril funding
Picture credits: Anduril

Anduril, a US-based defense technology unicorn, has raised $1.5 billion in a Series F funding round at a valuation of $14 billion. Back in 2022, the company closed its Series E funding round raising $1.48 billion

Investment details

The round was co-led by PayPal-founder Peter Thiel’s VC firm Founders Fund, which recently invested in Sentient Labs, and Sands Capital, with participation from new investors such as Fidelity Management & Research Company (which invested in Waymo and Figma), Counterpoint Global, and Baillie Gifford. Existing investors, such as Altimeter and Franklin Venture Partners, also participated in the round.

The company intends to use the capital to scale up its operations, including increasing hiring, improving processes, upgrading tooling, enhancing supply chain resiliency, and expanding infrastructure.

Brainchild of Oculus founder

Anduril was founded by Oculus (acquired by Meta) founder Palmer Luckey in 2017 in California. He is the designer of the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality head-mounted display. In 2017, Palmer Luckey left Meta and stopped his involvement with Oculus VR.

The same year, he founded Anduril, a defense technology company focused on autonomous drones and sensors for military applications. The company develops defense systems for the U.S. and allied nations. Its products reportedly range from surveillance towers to drones. It builds AI and commercially developed technologies into its hardware platforms for defense missions.

Anduril’s Arsenal-1

Arsenal is a software-defined manufacturing platform that is optimised for the mass production of autonomous systems and weapons. Arsenal integrates various stages of product development, from design to mass production, using a unified system that encompasses threat-based operational analysis, modelling, simulation, and other key manufacturing processes.

The company’s expansion plans include the development of Arsenal-1, a new facility that will increase manufacturing capabilities. Upon completion, Arsenal-1 is expected to provide over five million square feet of production space that will employ thousands of people and is designed to produce tens of thousands of autonomous military systems annually.

It provides maximum flexibility to reallocate the most critical manufacturing resources — people, capital, machines, and materials — to meet new requirements, launch new products, or scale production to meet surges in demand, indefinitely. This is simply not possible when those critical resources are spread out across multiple, distributed geographic areas.

As per the company’s statement: “Anduril is committed to transforming US and allied defense capabilities by combining modern software expertise with a rapid and differentiated approach to hardware development and manufacturing. From cutting-edge counter drone systems to extra-large autonomous underwater vehicles, Anduril has proven it can deliver highly-performant, next-generation, software-defined capabilities on a timeline and scale that matters.”

What do we think about Anduril?

The company is at the forefront of revolutionising defense technology, leveraging AI and advanced autonomous systems to meet the rapidly evolving needs of modern warfare. With substantial backing and a focus on scaling its Arsenal-1 manufacturing platform, the company is positioned to become a key player in global defense. Its ability to rapidly develop and deploy next-generation systems could significantly enhance the capabilities of the US and allied forces, driving innovation across the defense sector.

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