Palmer Luckey just can’t stop winning. Over the weekend, CNBC reported that Anduril is reportedly in talks to raise up to $2.5B at a $28B pre-money valuation. Sources familiar with the deal told Tectonic that the round was led by Peter Thiel’s Founder’s Fund, which coughed up a $1B check. The term sheet was reportedly signed on Thursday evening.
Anduril declined to comment on the Series G round. Rise of the new primes, indeed.
Start-up no more: It’s been a big year for Anduril. Last August, the company completed a $1.5B funding round led by Founders Fund and Sands Capital, which bumped the company’s valuation to $14B. Much of that funding will be used to build out its massive Arsenal-1 manufacturing facility in Columbus, OH.
In the past few months, it’s also added a slew of major contracts to its roster:
- $14.3M from the DoD to expand SRM production in January.
- $100M from the DoD’s Chief Digital and AI office for a production agreement to scale edge data integration in December 2024.
- $200M from the Marine Corps to develop cUAS, also in December 2024.
- $250M to develop air defense systems across the services in October 2024.
- Another contract alongside General Atomics to develop the USAF Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program, where drones will support manned fighter jets, awarded last spring.
Anduril also announced partnerships with OpenAI and Palantir at the end of last year and is reportedly in talks to form a “tech consortium” with Palantir, SpaceX, OpenAI, Saronic, and Scale AI, among others.
Friends in high places: Anduril’s founder, Palmer Luckey, is a staunch supporter of President Trump and has said that he sees the president as a boon for defense innovation. Peter Thiel of Founder’s Fund also backed Trump and is close to Elon Musk.