Over the past 5 years, Anduril, a defense software maker, has excelled in the field and grown into a multi-billion dollar organization.
Funding Round Second Only to SpaceX
Palmer Luckey, founder of Oculus VR Inc., has been working with his startup Anduril Industries Inc., since 2017. Anduril’s latest news has been that it raised a $1.48 billion funding round. This is the second largest funding round this year (2022), following SpaceX’s $1.7 billion round back in May.
The Series E fund for this defense startup has been led by Valor Equity Partners along with about a dozen others. These include Thrive Capital, Founders Fund, and WCM Investment Management to name a few. The Series E round will value Anduril at $8.48 billion, reported by Axios.
News of this funding round can be traced back to May of this year and, per a spokesperson, closed on December 1st. The company had previously closed a $450 million Series D funding round last June. Anduril has raised $1.9 billion in total from its investors since its launch in 2017.
Anduril- A Technology Partner
Anduril is best known for its capabilities to build autonomous systems such as drones and border surveillance technology. Their defense systems are used by the U.S. and allied nations. Along with drones and border surveillance, they also sell a platform called Lattice. This platform can collect sensor data from numerous defense systems and make it readily available to military personnel through a centralized interface (Defense technology).
Co-Founder and CEO Brian Schimph comments, “Anduril is a technology partner, not an equipment provider. Security threats are evolving faster than the DoD can keep pace. To really outmaneuver emerging threats, we need to move past just efficiencies and create clear step changes in capability quickly.”
The software they develop is a major focus area for Anduril. According to a source at the Financial Times, most engineers employed by Anduril spend their time working on the Lattice platform.
In February 2022, the company acquired Dive Technologies Inc., a startup that focused on developing autonomous underwater vehicles. This was Anduril’s first expansion into focusing on naval vessels. After the acquisition, Anduril received a $100 million contract from the Royal Australian Navy to develop three prototype robot submarines (Defense technology).
Since its launch, Anduril has achieved multiple other defense contracts. In January, they won a $1 billion contract to provide counter-drone equipment and software to the U.S Special Operations Command. Their counter-drone technology was also purchased by the U.S. Defense Department’s Defense Innovation Unit.
A statement from the Financial Times included that Anduril generates “hundreds of millions of dollars” in annual revenue. They work with numerous branches of the U.S. military and a half dozen of allied nations.