What is Anduril Industries?
AI-native defense technology company building autonomous systems and the Lattice command-and-control platform for the U.S. and allied militaries.
- Category
- Defense Technology
- Headquarters
- Costa Mesa, California
- Founded
- 2017
- Employees
- ~7,000
- Total funding
- ~$11.3B equity
- Valuation
- $61B (Series H, May 2026)
What is Anduril Industries?
Anduril Industries is a Costa Mesa, California defense-technology company founded in 2017 that builds AI-native autonomous systems — drones, counter-drone interceptors, undersea vehicles, and surveillance towers — all tied together by Lattice, its AI command-and-control operating system. It is the most valuable defense-tech startup in the world, valued at $61 billion after a $5 billion Series H in May 2026, and reported roughly $2.1–2.2 billion of revenue in 2025.
Anduril inverted the traditional defense procurement model. Instead of waiting for a government Request for Proposal and billing development hours on cost-plus contracts, it funds R&D with venture capital, builds finished products, and sells them to the Pentagon and allied militaries at firm fixed prices. The unifying layer is Lattice OS, software that fuses thousands of sensor feeds into a real-time 3D operating picture and lets one operator command many autonomous systems point-and-click.
The scale is now enormous for a company under a decade old. Revenue roughly doubled to about $2.1–2.2 billion in 2025 (up ~110% from ~$1 billion in 2024), and Anduril projects $4.3 billion for 2026 as its Arsenal-1 factory near Columbus, Ohio scales mass production. Customers include the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force and Marine Corps, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and allied forces in the United Kingdom and Australia.
Anduril's market position rests on a string of marquee programs: a U.S. Army enterprise agreement with a ceiling of up to $20 billion (announced March 2026, consolidating 120+ prior contracts), a U.S. Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft slot for its YFQ-44A Fury, a $642 million Marine Corps counter-drone contract, and Australia's A$1.7 billion Ghost Shark autonomous submarine program. It is widely seen as the leading challenger to legacy primes like Lockheed Martin and RTX.
What does Anduril Industries offer?
Anduril sells an integrated 'system of systems' spanning autonomous air, ground, sea, and space hardware, all unified by its Lattice software platform.
- Lattice (AI command & control)· Software
- Lattice for Mission Autonomy· Software
- Ghost (autonomous UAS)· Air systems
- Fury / YFQ-44A (collaborative combat aircraft)· Air systems
- Bolt / Bolt-M (loitering munition)· Air systems
- Barracuda (cruise missile family)· Air systems
- Anvil / Roadrunner (counter-drone interceptors)· Counter-UAS
- Sentry Tower (autonomous surveillance)· Ground & border
- Dive-LD / Dive-XL / Ghost Shark (undersea vehicles)· Maritime
- Copperhead (underwater munitions)· Maritime
- Menace (expeditionary C2 infrastructure)· Infrastructure
- Arsenal (mass-manufacturing platform)· Manufacturing
How does Anduril Industries make money?
Anduril makes money by selling proprietary, privately-developed autonomous systems and Lattice software licenses to governments at firm fixed prices — not by billing development hours on cost-plus contracts the way legacy primes do.
The model flips defense procurement. Anduril uses venture capital to fund R&D internally, brings finished or near-finished products to market, and sells them at firm fixed prices, so the government knows exactly what it will pay before a contract starts. Revenue comes from three streams: hardware sales (drones, interceptors, towers, undersea vehicles), recurring Lattice software licensing and subscriptions, and multi-year sustainment.
Because Anduril owns the IP and develops with private capital, its estimated gross margins of roughly 40–45% dwarf the 8–10% typical of cost-plus primes like Lockheed Martin and RTX. Anduril does not publish a public price book — it sells via negotiated government contracts rather than published SaaS tiers — but contract sizes span an enormous range: from small border-tower and counter-UAS deals (single-digit to low-hundreds of millions) up to enormous framework agreements. The U.S. Army's 2026 enterprise IDIQ carries a ceiling of up to $20 billion over ten years (a five-year base plus a five-year option, running through March 2036), while individual awards include a $642 million Marine Corps counter-drone deal and Australia's A$1.7 billion Ghost Shark program.
Growth is driven by Arsenal — Anduril's mass-manufacturing platform — and the Arsenal-1 factory in Ohio, designed to produce tens of thousands of autonomous systems per year, pushing unit costs down so attritable weapons can be fielded in quantity. Even so, Anduril runs at a loss while it scales: it is projected to post an operating loss of roughly $1.2 billion in 2026, and management does not expect adjusted-EBITDA profitability until around 2030 as it pours capital into factories, R&D, and headcount.
Who leads Anduril Industries?
Anduril was founded in 2017 by five people, several from Palantir; Brian Schimpf is CEO, Palmer Luckey is the public-facing founder, and Trae Stephens chairs the board. All five co-founders remained with the company as of 2026.
- Brian SchimpfCo-founder & CEO2017–presentFormer Palantir director of engineering; the quiet operator running day-to-day company and product strategy.
- Palmer LuckeyCo-founder2017–presentFounder of Oculus VR (sold to Facebook for ~$2.3B); Anduril's chief evangelist and public face.
- Trae StephensCo-founder & Executive Chairman2017–presentPartner at Founders Fund and early Palantir employee; sourced and seeded the company.
- Matt GrimmCo-founder & COO2017–presentFormer Palantir operations leader; runs operations, manufacturing, and finance.
- Joe ChenCo-founder2017–presentEngineering co-founder from the original Palantir-rooted founding team.
How do you contact Anduril Industries's leadership?
Anduril publishes media@anduril.com for press inquiries. Individual work emails follow a common [first-initial][last]@anduril.com pattern (e.g. bschimpf@anduril.com) reported by email-lookup services such as RocketReach. The per-person addresses below follow that format and are not individually published; the media address is the only officially published contact.
bschimpf@anduril.comHow much funding has Anduril Industries raised?
Anduril has raised roughly $11.3 billion in equity across eight rounds since 2017. Its most recent round — a $5 billion Series H in May 2026, co-led by Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz — valued the company at $61 billion, making it the most valuable defense-tech startup in the world.
The early rounds were small and Founders Fund–led: a ~$17.5 million seed in August 2017 (~$88M valuation) and a $41 million Series A in June 2018 (~$262M valuation). A Series B followed in September 2019 with participation from General Catalyst and Andreessen Horowitz, and a Series C in 2020 carried the company past a $1 billion valuation as its Customs and Border Protection sentry-tower deployments ramped.
The scale-up began in June 2021 with a $450 million Series D at a $4.6 billion valuation, co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and 8VC (with 1789, Lux, Valor, D1, and General Catalyst participating). In December 2022, a $1.48 billion Series E led by Valor Equity Partners set an $8.48 billion valuation. August 2024's $1.5 billion Series F — co-led by Founders Fund and Sands Capital, with Fidelity, Counterpoint Global, and Baillie Gifford joining — pushed the company to $14 billion and funded the Arsenal-1 factory.
The last two rounds were the largest. In June 2025, a $2.5 billion Series G led by Founders Fund (whose ~$1 billion check was the firm's largest ever, in a round reported as ~8x oversubscribed) more than doubled the valuation to $30.5 billion. Eleven months later, the May 2026 Series H raised $5 billion at $61 billion, co-led by Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz — doubling the valuation again and bringing cumulative equity to about $11.3 billion. Anduril has never had a down round.
How did Anduril Industries get here?
From a five-person 2017 startup to a $61 billion defense-tech leader in under a decade.
- 2017Founded in Orange County, CaliforniaPalmer Luckey, Brian Schimpf, Trae Stephens, Matt Grimm, and Joe Chen — several from Palantir — launch Anduril; Founders Fund leads a ~$17.5M seed.
- 2020Sentry towers deployed at the U.S. borderAnduril wins U.S. Customs and Border Protection contracts; a 2020 Series C round values it above $1B (unicorn).
- Dec 2022Series E — $8.5B valuation$1.48B led by Valor Equity Partners as Lattice and the hardware portfolio scale; Anduril acquires Dive Technologies, seeding its undersea line.
- Aug 2024Series F & Arsenal-1 announced$1.5B at $14B (Founders Fund, Sands Capital) to build the Arsenal-1 mass-manufacturing factory in Ohio.
- Jun 2025Series G — $30.5B valuation$2.5B led by Founders Fund (~8x oversubscribed); revenue roughly doubles to ~$2.1B for the year.
- 2026$20B U.S. Army deal, Arsenal-1 online & $61B Series HMarch 2026 Army enterprise IDIQ with a ceiling up to $20B; Arsenal-1 begins Fury production; $5B Series H in May 2026 (Thrive Capital, a16z) values Anduril at $61B.
Who are Anduril Industries's competitors?
Anduril competes with both legacy defense primes and a new wave of venture-backed defense-tech startups.
- Palantir TechnologiesDefense-software incumbent; strong in data/AI command software but does not build the autonomous hardware Anduril manufactures.
- Lockheed MartinLargest legacy prime; dominates major platforms via cost-plus contracts, the opposite of Anduril's fixed-price, software-first model.
- Shield AIClosest venture-backed rival; leads in AI fighter-pilot autonomy (Hivemind) versus Anduril's broader multi-domain hardware portfolio.
- Saronic TechnologiesAutonomous surface-vessel specialist; focused on maritime drones where Anduril spans air, ground, sea, and space.
- HelsingEuropean AI-defense leader; software-centric battlefield AI, strongest in Europe versus Anduril's U.S.-led footprint.
- RTX (Raytheon)Legacy missile and sensor prime; deep in munitions and radar but tied to traditional procurement cycles Anduril aims to displace.
Anduril Industries — frequently asked questions
