Defense tech darling Mach Industries has closed a $79 million Series A led by Bedrock Capital in a deal that catapulted their post-money valuation to $335 million, multiple sources tell TechCrunch.
Mach Industries’ head of growth Koko Xu confirmed the numbers in an email, adding that the new investment came “from Bedrock and other top tier investors.”
Ethan Thornton, Mach CEO, later told TechCrunch that the funds are from investors including “Bedrock, DCVC, Marque and others to build defense hardware.”
The startup raised the new round scarcely four months after announcing its $5.7 million seed round led by Sequoia Capital — the firm’s first investment in defense tech. Mach received its first investments from Champion Hill Ventures and 1517 Fund.
Mach is developing a suite of hydrogen-powered platforms and munitions for the military, including unmanned aerial vehicles and hydrogen generation systems. Admittedly, the company is fairly tight-lipped about the exact tech — not unusual for a defense startup — but the big bet is that field-sourced hydrogen will give the military a critical advantage on the battlefield.
The idea posited by Mach — and many other startups working with the Pentagon — is nothing less than a paradigm shift for how the U.S. government has traditionally procured defense systems. Instead of spending billions of dollars on very exquisite systems that have long development cycles, startups want to offer cheaper systems at a higher volume, with iterative development programs that have become a Silicon Valley trademark.
This would not be Bedrock’s first foray into defense tech, a field that has attracted an increasing number of investors over the past 18 months, as multi-unicorns like Anduril win massive government contracts and raise giant amounts of capital. Other defense investments from Bedrock include Anduril, Austin-based AI company Modern Intelligence and defense systems startup Epirus.
The story has been updated to include comments from Ethan Thornton.