Defense technology darling Mach Industries’ value reaches $1.8 billion, a 4-fold jump in one year

Mach Industries, a three-year-old defense technology startup led by 22-year-old founder and CEO Ethan Thornton, has raised a $300 million Series C at a valuation of $1.8 billion, the company announced Monday.

The increase nearly quadruples the company’s valuation in one year. In June 2025, Mach raised $100 million at a valuation of $470 million. It has now raised about $485 million from investors, including Bedrock Capital, Sequoia Capital and Khosla Ventures.

The round was led by deep tech funds Infinite Capital and Ribbit Capital, known for fintech and more recently for hot deals everywhere — from AI programming startups like Cognition to new clouds like Crusoe.

Because building autonomous weapons is a capital-intensive industry, Thornton began actively raising money two months ago, he told TechCrunch, and quickly discovered that the round would be popular with investors.

“We went out to collect 200 [million dollars] “We were oversubscribed at $200, and we were happy with the price, so we decided to raise up to $300,” Thornton said of the fundraising effort. “We are still oversubscribed at $300.”

Mach was founded in 2023, and its growth has been a difficult journey for Thornton, who left MIT at 19 to start the company. VC enthusiasm is high for several reasons. Beyond AI, defense technology is a hot area for investment right now, as new autonomous weapons and drone defense systems prove themselves in the battle in Ukraine.

Mach also became prolific in his short time. The Huntington Beach, California-based company now has five autonomous vehicles in development: Viper, a jet-powered vertical take-off vehicle; Glide, a high-altitude glider capable of launching weapons; Stratos, an airborne observation platform; DART, a low-cost counter-drone interceptor; And Pike, intended for firing long-range ammunition. The company says production is expected to begin next year on at least three of these systems.

Additionally, this week it won a contract from the Department of Defense to create a new sixth vehicle that the startup has not previously discussed publicly, Thornton tells TechCrunch. The contract is from the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to develop the Navy’s new “runway-independent attack aircraft,” as the startup describes it.

Thornton says this would be for a very large aircraft, which could have applications in the commercial industry as well.

It has also grown from about a dozen employees in its first year to about 350 employees today, and has a 115,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Huntington Beach, and design and production facilities at a number of other locations.

“So by the end of this year, in 2026, we will have opened four new production facilities,” Thornton said.

But another reason why venture capital firms are writing big checks is that last month, Mach orchestrated an industry coup (excuse the pun) when it acquired solid rocket motor (SRM) startup Exquadrum in a cash-and-stock deal worth $50 million, as TechCrunch previously reported. The startup said it beat out more than eight other potential buyers.

There is an acute shortage of SRMs as drones create unprecedented demand in a market dominated by two major defense contractors, Aerojet Rocketdyne and Northrop Grumman. Purchase lead times can extend for years.

With this purchase, Mach takes control of its own destiny with rocket engines and has launched a new business, Mach Energetics, to sell the engines. While Thornton declined to share revenue, he said the current mix is ​​50/50 between selling to the government and selling to other companies.

Thornton remembers a moment last year when he was struck by the company’s rapid growth. Two years ago, all-hands meetings were held in a conference room with “about a dozen people,” he said. “At our two-year party, we had over 200 chairs and it was standing room only.”

However, he said he was most proud of the speed of the product’s development. This is, after all, the entire reason for his company and the defense technology industry. The idea with these startups, backed by technology venture capital, is to deliver faster, more affordable products for the military and related commercial uses, rather than the expensive, custom-made offerings of legacy major defense contractors.

“Traditionally, it takes four years to build a jet engine,” Thornton said. “That’s the fastest you can find in the industry. We went from not having a team to building a team to a working jet engine in about eight months.”