Anduril, the defense-tech startup founded by Palmer Luckey, has signed a term sheet to raise capital at a $28 billion valuation, according to people familiar with the matter.
The company is planning to raise up to $2.5 billion in the round, said the people who asked not to be named because the details are confidential. The latest funding would double Anduril’s valuation from August.
Anduril, the three-time CNBC Disruptor 50 company that ranked No. 2 in 2024, aims to disrupt traditional defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman by developing its own products and selling them to clients, in contrast to the traditional military process of contracting and then building.
An Anduril spokesperson declined to comment.
Luckey, who sold virtual reality company Oculus to Facebook for $2 billion in 2014, has been a public supporter of Donald Trump since long before the president’s return to the White House.
“I’ve been on the tech-for-Trump train for longer than just about anyone,” Luckey, who started the company in 2017, told CNBC’s “Closing Bell Overtime” on Nov. 6, right after Trump’s election victory. “The idea that we need to be the strongest military in the world is really non-partisan.”
In December, Anduril announced a partnership with artificial intelligence startup OpenAI, allowing the defense tech company to deploy advanced AI systems for “national security missions.”
It’s part of a broader and controversial trend of AI companies walking back bans on military use of their products and entering into partnerships with defense companies and the U.S. Department of Defense. In December, Anthropic and Palantir announced a partnership with Amazon Web Services to “provide U.S. intelligence and defense agencies access” to Anthropic’s AI models.
While Anduril is still privately held, Palantir, which sells software and services to defense agencies, is publicly traded and has been one of the best performers on the stock market in the past year, jumping 370% over that stretch, lifting its market cap past $250 billion. The company reported in its latest earnings report this week that government revenue jumped 45% from a year earlier to $343 million.
Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund is leading the latest Anduril financing, with a $1 billion commitment, sources said, the largest check ever for the firm. Thiel, who was a major Trump supporter in the 2016 campaign, is one of Palantir’s co-founders. Trae Stephens, a partner at Founders Fund, is an Anduril co-founder.
Anduril’s revenue in 2024 doubled to about $1 billion and annual contract value reached $1.5 billion, the people said.
In 2023, Anduril launched several new drones that rely on its Lattice AI-powered command and control software used by the U.S. military and allies to direct human-assisted robotics systems to perform complex missions.
WATCH: Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey talks what a Trump White House means for defense tech
