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Anduril Industries

Anduril Industries is a defense technology company headquartered in Costa Mesa, California, United States, co-founded in 2017 by Palmer Luckey and several former Palantir and Oculus employees. It develops autonomous drones, unmanned undersea vehicles, border surveillance towers, counter-drone systems, and the Lattice command-and-control software, and builds its own large-scale weapons manufacturing facilities. As of May 2026, the company was valued at $61 billion.

Contents22 sections
Key facts

Founding

Anduril was founded by Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey, with co-founders Brian Schimpf, Matt Grimm, Joe Chen, and Founders Fund partner Trae Stephens. The company was incorporated in June 2017 and was initially based in Irvine, California. Grimm and Stephens were former Palantir engineers, Chen was a former Oculus producer and product lead, and Schimpf, a former Palantir director, was already listed as chief executive officer in June 2017.⁠[1][2][2][2]

The company said at the time that it was privately funding and building products that the United States and its allies urgently needed, including real-time battlefield awareness for soldiers on the ground and headquarters alike and technology to keep front-line personnel out of harm’s way; its job postings covered computer vision, sensor fusion, distributed computing, optics and camera systems, LIDAR and RADAR, robotics, and aeronautical design.⁠[2][2][2]

Border Surveillance Towers and Air Force Contracts

In July 2020, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) awarded Anduril a $25 million surveillance tower contract, followed by $36 million in September, with plans to deploy 200 AI-powered autonomous surveillance towers by 2022 in a relationship worth more than $200 million in total. The towers, together with Anduril’s small, ultra-quiet Ghost drones, relay data back to the company’s Lattice software platform, which automatically identifies people crossing the border and sends push alerts to border agents; that month the company launched the fourth generation of its Ghost drone, and it had already introduced Anvil, a counter-drone system that can identify a target drone and knock it out of the sky.⁠[3][3][3][3][3][3]

In September 2020, Anduril became one of 15 companies awarded U.S. Air Force contracts worth up to $950 million each, related to Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2), the concept of connecting sensors from all of the military services; Luckey said the contracts were part of the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS).⁠[4][4][4]

Acquiring Area-I

Anduril acquired Area-I, a Georgia-based air-launched effects company whose main product is the ALTIUS unmanned system, which can be launched from platforms such as helicopters; after the acquisition, it operated as a wholly owned subsidiary under the Area-I brand.⁠[1][1][1][1]

$450 Million Series D

Anduril raised a $450 million Series D round at a $4.6 billion valuation (up from $1.9 billion in July 2020), led by angel investor Elad Gil with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, 8VC, General Catalyst, Lux Capital, and others. By then the company had won contracts with CBP and the U.S. Marine Corps, and its products included long-endurance drones, surveillance towers, and the Lattice platform connecting them.⁠[5][5][5][5][5][5]

Acquiring Dive Technologies

Anduril acquired Dive Technologies, a Boston-based autonomous underwater vehicle company, extending its unmanned systems into the undersea domain; Dive’s main product was the modular autonomous underwater vehicle DIVE-LD.⁠[6][6][6]

Selected for the Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft Program

The U.S. Air Force announced that Anduril had been selected as one of two vendors to move forward to the next phase of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program, in which it would design, manufacture, and test production-representative unmanned combat aircraft.⁠[7]

Series F and the Arsenal Manufacturing Platform

Anduril announced a $1.5 billion Series F round co-led by Founders Fund and Sands Capital at a $14 billion valuation, with new investors including Fidelity, Counterpoint Global, and Baillie Gifford. At the same time, the company introduced Arsenal, a software-defined manufacturing platform, and planned to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Arsenal-1, a factory of more than five million square feet that would employ thousands of people and produce tens of thousands of autonomous military systems each year; the company argued that the war in Ukraine had exposed shortfalls in U.S. weapons and munitions production capacity.⁠[8][8][8][8][8]

The 300th Border Surveillance Tower

Anduril deployed its 300th Autonomous Surveillance Tower (AST) for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, providing situational awareness along land and maritime borders.⁠[9]

Choosing Ohio for Arsenal-1

Anduril announced that it had selected Columbus, Ohio, as the site of Arsenal-1, its first hyperscale manufacturing facility, investing nearly $1 billion of its own money and expecting to create 4,000 direct jobs, plus about 8,500 jobs in supplier, construction, and other sectors.⁠[10][10][10]

Taking Over the Army IVAS Headset Program

In February 2025, the U.S. Army transferred to Anduril the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), a soldier augmented reality headset program originally awarded to Microsoft with a total budget of $22 billion.⁠[11][11][12]

Announcing the Acquisition of Klas

Anduril announced that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Klas, a Dublin, Ireland–based maker of edge computing and tactical communications equipment, subject to regulatory approval.⁠[13]

Partnering With Meta on Military XR Products

Anduril announced a partnership with Meta to design, build, and field, with private funding, a range of extended reality (XR) products for the U.S. military, helping soldiers enhance their perception and intuitively control autonomous platforms on the battlefield.⁠[12][12]

$2.5 Billion Series G

Anduril raised a $2.5 billion Series G round, doubling its valuation to $30.5 billion; Founders Fund invested $1 billion, the largest check the firm has ever written. The company said its revenue doubled in 2024 to about $1 billion. Executive chairman and co-founder Trae Stephens disclosed the round in an interview on Bloomberg Television.⁠[11][11][11][11]

Army Mixed Reality Prototype Contract

Anduril received a $159 million U.S. Army contract for an initial prototyping period to develop a night vision and mixed reality system for the Soldier Borne Mission Command program (formerly IVAS Next).⁠[14]

Australian Navy Program of Record for Ghost Shark

The Royal Australian Navy awarded Anduril Australia a program of record worth A$1.7 billion (about $1.12 billion) to deliver a fleet of Ghost Shark extra-large autonomous undersea vehicles, with production already underway; the vehicle was co-developed and co-funded by the Navy and Anduril and went from concept to production in less than three years.⁠[15][15][15]

YFQ-44A Begins Flight Testing

The YFQ-44A, developed by Anduril for the Air Force CCA program, began flight testing, taking 556 days from clean-sheet design to first flight.⁠[16]

Arsenal-1 Construction Progress

Arsenal-1 is located in Pickaway County, Ohio. A year after the plant was announced, Building 1 (775,000 square feet of production space) was under construction and Building 2 (more than 924,000 square feet) had broken ground in summer 2025; the company locked in a 10-year buildout to bring the plant to full scale by 2035 and hired more than 50 people for it in 2025. The plant’s first product is the YFQ-44A.⁠[17][17][17][17][17][17]

$5 Billion Series H

Anduril announced a $5 billion Series H round at a $61 billion valuation, led by Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, bringing its total funding raised to more than $11 billion. CEO Brian Schimpf said the company more than doubled its revenue to $2.2 billion in 2025, nearly doubled its workforce, and won and delivered on its first international program of record (with the Royal Australian Navy).⁠[18][19][18]

CCA Program Enters Production

The U.S. Air Force selected Anduril for the production phase of the CCA program, under which it will deliver an initial set of production FQ-44 semi-autonomous fighter aircraft, with a structure for additional purchases over the following several years. The company said the path from the prototype award in April 2024 and first flight in October 2025 to the production contract in June 2026 was the fastest from prototype to production for a fighter aircraft in more than 50 years.⁠[20][20][20][20]

The Arsenal-2 Submarine Component Shipyard

President Trump announced the Arsenal-2 project: Anduril will invest $3.7 billion in private capital to build a software-defined shipyard at Sparrows Point at Tradepoint Atlantic in Baltimore County, Maryland, manufacturing complex components and large-scale assemblies for Virginia-class attack submarines for final assembly by General Dynamics Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding; the Navy also awarded Anduril a contract of up to $2.9 billion with payments tied to demonstrated production outcomes, for a combined total of $6.6 billion. The project is expected to create 3,100 direct jobs, with initial operations expected to begin in 2030.⁠[21][21][21][21][21][21][21][21]

Related Organizations, Websites, and Public Accounts

Anduril Industries: Official website: https://www.anduril.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[21]

Sources

  1. Anduril buys tube-launched drone developer Area-I (opens in a new window)
  2. Palmer Luckey’s new defense company Anduril looks interested in AR and VR on the battlefield (opens in a new window)
  3. Anduril launches a smarter drone and picks up more money to build a virtual border wall (opens in a new window)
  4. Luckey’s Anduril Awarded Air Force Contract Worth Up To $950M (opens in a new window)
  5. Anduril raises $450M as the defense tech company’s valuation soars to $4.6B (opens in a new window)
  6. Anduril Industries Acquires Dive Technologies (opens in a new window)
  7. Anduril Selected for U.S. Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft Program (opens in a new window)
  8. Anduril Raises $1.5 Billion to Rebuild the Arsenal of Democracy (opens in a new window)
  9. Anduril Deploys 300th Autonomous Surveillance Tower (AST), Advancing Capability for Border Security (opens in a new window)
  10. Anduril Building Arsenal-1 Hyperscale Manufacturing Facility in Ohio (opens in a new window)
  11. Anduril raises $2.5B at $30.5B valuation led by Founders Fund (opens in a new window)
  12. Anduril and Meta Team Up to Transform XR for the American Military (opens in a new window)
  13. Anduril to Acquire Klas to Build the Future of Tactical Compute and Communications (opens in a new window)
  14. Anduril Awarded Contract to Redefine the Future of Mixed Reality (opens in a new window)
  15. Ghost Shark Enters Program of Record — From Prototype to Fleet in Three Years (opens in a new window)
  16. Anduril’s YFQ-44A Begins Flight Testing for the Collaborative Combat Aircraft Program (opens in a new window)
  17. Arsenal-1: One Year In (opens in a new window)
  18. Anduril Announces $5B Series H Raise (opens in a new window)
  19. Anduril raises $5B, doubles valuation to $61B (opens in a new window)
  20. Anduril Wins Production Contract for U.S. Air Force CCA Program (opens in a new window)
  21. Anduril, U.S. Navy Invest $6.6 Billion to Expand America's Submarine Industrial Base (opens in a new window)