Rising-Star Defense Tech Mach Industries has announced a $100 million new funding at a $470 million valuation. TechCrunch first reported that the transaction was in work last month.
Khosla Ventures’ new investor Keith Rabois joins existing investor Geoff Lewis of Bedrock Capital to lead the round. Existing investor Sequoia also participated. Fresh funding will increase the startup total to around $185 million so far.
The round represents a modest step up from the company’s previous ratings. When Mach announced Series A funds in October 2023, investors allocated the company a $335 million money valuation. This means that it is basically flat from the pre-money valuation from the latest round of $470 million, representing an additional value of just $35 million over the past year and a half.
The rise in Mach Industries’ world of defense technology was nothing but a meteor, even if the latest funding round suggests investor enthusiasm is cautious. It was founded in 2023 by 19-year-old CEO Ethan Thornton. Ethan Thornton dropped out of MIT and worked full-time at the company.
In June 2023, he landed Sequoia’s Stephanie Chan and Sean Maguire as investors who led Mach’s $5.7 million seed round. Bedlock Capital founder Jeff Lewis led Mach’s $79 million Series A few months later.
Within last year, Mach had grown from about 20 employees to 140, Thornton tells TechCrunch. The startup has designed three weapon systems. It lands a super light jet-powered vertical takeoff and an unmanned aviation vehicle called Viper, which does not require a runway. A high-altitude glider plane named Glide that allows you to hit targets from miles away at the edge of the atmosphere. It is also an aerial satellite with sensors and communications functions that can operate at extremely altitudes.
The company also secures critical contracts and infrastructure investments. Earlier this year, Mach was selected by the Army Application Institute to develop a vertical takeoff precision cruise missile and announced plans for the first factory, a 115,000-square-foot facility in Huntington Beach, California.
Mach’s goal is to create weapons with the “ability to carry out strikes over very long range,” Thornton said. However, the rapid growth of his young company was a whirlwind experience. He remembers moving to his company’s first office in Cambridge, Massachusetts just two years ago. As the company was boring with cash, he and founding team member Ashton Bennett handcrafted office furniture, the University Dome style.
“We went to Home Depot, bought a bunch of bundles, bought a 2×4 bundle and built all the furniture ourselves,” he told TechCrunch on videoconference from a room that now features furniture from a commercial office. “I think we’re still equally crude, but now it’s very exciting to have a full factory and team. [that’s] Veterans from the industry who have done this before, and new to the defense industry.
The founders also say they know the gravity of building weapons in an age of unprecedented advances in AI and global political unrest. He points to the Ukrainian drone “Spiderweb” attack on Russian bombers as an example of a new kind of specific AI-powered war that has already arrived.
Thornton, along with other young defense technology candidates, believes his company is building this new reality weapon at a more affordable price than traditional defense contractors offer.
He emphasizes that his work is done in conjunction with a demographic decision-maker. “The work we do is through direct contact with members of the State Department, the Department of Defense and Congress,” he says.
Going forward, Mach will use new funds to build manufacturing capabilities, develop some new products in R&D, and Thornton has not yet discussed publicly, including some new propulsion engine.
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