anduril
When the government is the customer (some things to keep in mind)
Five years ago, Google backed away from a Pentagon government contract because thousands of employees protested that its tech might be used for lethal drone targeting. Today, however, Silicon Valley h
Private investment in space dropped 58% last year, even with SpaceX, Anduril monster raises
Private investment in the space economy dropped by 58% in 2022 compared to the year prior, with macroeconomic headwinds battering private and public markets, according to new analysis from New York-ba
Startups and VCs are increasingly embracing the federal government. Here’s why
Enterprise startups are increasingly turning their attention to landing the federal government as a customer -- and VCs are all-in.
VC fundraising gets weird as autumn nears
The first half of 2022 broke fundraising records at VC firms, but everyone we spoke to expected fundraising to slow by the end of the year. While it is slowing down, it's also getting weird.
Countdown Capital raises $15 million to back the next industrial revolution
In a time when most VCs are acting more cautiously and placing focus on companies with a quick path to profitability, Countdown Capital is instead going all in on hard-to-build, capital-intensive bets
Anduril is raising up to $1.2B, sources say at a $7B pre-money valuation, for its defense tech
Technology built to improve state resilience — be it in the form of cybersecurity, energy independence, national defense or something else entirely — has come into stronger focus in the wa
137 Ventures, which provides loans to private company shareholders, just raised a new fund
137 Ventures, a 10-year-old, San Francisco-based firm that offers loans to founders, executives, early employees and other large shareholders of private, high-growth tech companies in exchange for the
With more cash and a launch, Vannevar Labs is reconnecting Silicon Valley to its defense industry roots
Silicon Valley was once one of the most productive regions in the country for the defense industry, churning out chips and technologies that helped the United States overtake the Soviet Union during t
Anduril raises $450M as the defense tech company’s valuation soars to $4.6B
The AI-powered defense company founded by tech iconoclast Palmer Luckey has landed a $450 million round of investment that values the startup at $4.6 billion just four years in. In April, reports sugg
This VC introduced Palantir’s first business hire to its earliest engineer, then his business took off
You might not know of XYZ Venture Capital, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based seed-stage venture firm, but many veterans of Palantir are surely aware of it. XYZ says it has already backed 22 startup
Space manufacturing startup Varda, incubated at Founders Fund, emerges with $9 million in funding
From a young age, Will Bruey, the co-founder and chief executive of Varda Space Industries, was fascinated with space and running his own business. So when the former SpaceX engineer was tapped by Del
Anduril among companies tapped to build the Air Force’s ‘internet of things’ for war
Palmer Luckey’s young defense company has been selected by the Air Force for work on a cutting-edge, multibillion-dollar nervous system for war. Luckey announced on his Twitter account Thursday
Anduril launches a smarter drone and picks up more money to build a virtual border wall
The company building the virtual border wall has a new version of its stealthy fast-flying drones — and a fresh contract with Customs and Border Protection to match. Anduril, a young defense-friendl
Vannevar Labs comes out of stealth to bring best-in-class AI tech to national security agencies
Few organizations have the complex data and analytics problems that challenge the defense and intelligence communities every single day. Whether it is managing petabytes of text, audio, or video data,
Inside the history of Silicon Valley labor, with Louis Hyman
As I wrote for TechCrunch recently, immigration is not an issue always associated with tech — not even when thinking about the ethics of technology, as I do here. So when I was moved to tears a few
Palmer Luckey’s defense company Anduril is already leading to arrests at the southern border
Palmer Luckey’s defense project just crawled out of stealth mode. Between a flattering new Wired piece and its first few official tweets, the secretive year-old company known as Anduril is stepp
Palmer Luckey’s new defense company Anduril looks interested in AR and VR on the battlefield
Palmer Luckey's new defense startup Anduril has aspirations well beyond a high-tech border wall. According to new information on the company's website and its hires, Anduril intends to apply its virtu
Border wall bill draws on Palmer Luckey’s new defense company
After being ousted from the VR empire he built, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey is wasting no time on his next project: building the wall. As CNN reports, Luckey's newfound interest in defense is evident