Just months after raising $1.5 billion at a $14 billion valuation, defense tech giant Anduril is in talks to raise another funding round that would value it at $28 billion, Forbes has learned.
The round, a $2.5 billion series G round, according to multiple sources familiar with the talks, is being led by Founders Fund, where Anduril’s chairman Trae Stephens is a partner, and which is expected to contribute $1 billion. It’s unclear who else is involved in the talks, but previous major backers include Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst and 8VC.
Anduril declined to comment. Founders Fund didn’t immediately respond to a comment request.
News of the talks comes amid a froth of investor interest in tech companies developing national security products to peddle to the Pentagon. Anduril was among the first to build a business around the improvement of U.S. military capabilities. In recent years, it has secured billions in government contracts for attack and reconnaissance drones, autonomous marine vessels and AI-powered software. And it competes with a growing cadre of startups following in its footsteps — unicorn-valued companies like dronemaker ShieldAI, autonomous boat startup Saronic and counter-drone company Epirus.
Should it come through, Anduril’s new funding would extend a hell of a run. In April, it won a first-stage U.S. Air Force contract alongside General Atomics to provide autonomous drones to serve as “wingmen” to manned fighter jets, beating out massive incumbents like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Boeing.
Then in August, it landed its $1.5 billion funding round, led by Founders Fund and Sands Capital, which valued the company at $14 billion. Much of that cash has been earmarked for a 5 million square-foot manufacturing facility in Columbus, Ohio to scale up production of its drones and other products. It plans to invest “hundreds of millions” in the plant, which it claims will someday employ 4,000 people. It would be the company’s fourth manufacturing facility with others in Mississippi, Australia and Rhode Island.
Anduril recently announced that it was launching a consortium of defense tech companies alongside Palantir, to rival the incumbent defense prime contractors, like Northrup Grumann, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing — in a bid to speed up AI adoption in the military.
On Thursday, Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf attended a high-profile government summit in Hawaii with high ranking executives from other prominent defense tech companies to discuss AI strategies. The meeting, which has not been previously reported, was hosted by the Pentagon’s Indo-Pacific Command, which oversees all U.S. forces in the region. It was among the first high level AI-military summits to be held by the Pentagon since President Trump took office..
Attended by executives from Palantir, OpenAI, ShieldAI, and Saronic, according to an attendee list obtained by Forbes, the summit was held just weeks after Chinese AI startup DeepSeek released an AI model that rivaled those of it American counterparts, but cost far less to build. Anduril declined to comment on the summit. The Pentagon and other companies listed above did not respond to a request for comment.
Notably absent from the attendee list: defense incumbents like Northrup, Boeing andLockheed, as well as Elon Musk led companies, xAI and SpaceX (which has billions of dollars in military contracts).
The potential spike in Anduril’s valuation comes as other defense-focused tech companies have recorded immense gains in valuation since President Donald Trump was elected, signalling increasing bullishness for defense companies; Palantir’s stock has almost tripled since the start of November, and is now valued at $256 billion. It also comes amid open questions about whether, or when, Anduril will go public — it would be among the first venture-backed weapons manufacturers to go public in recent years.
CNBC, which first reported the talks, disclosed that the company’s revenue doubled to $1 billion in 2024.
The cofounders of Anduril, which includes Palmer Luckey, the company’s enigmatic public face, established the company to produce hardware laced with sophisticated software, something the DOD and traditional defense contractors have struggled to do well. They’ve also designed their weapons systems to be networked together to provide a holistic view of the battlefield and give soldiers easy ability to command them remotely.
The company has used its piles of cash to roll up smaller defense tech companies, acquiring Blue Force Technologies, which developed Anduril’s wingman drone; Area-I, which made loitering munitions; and Dive, whose submersibles Anduril is now producing for the Australian military.
Additional reporting by Jeremy Bogaisky.
