CNBC reported Tuesday Palmer Luckey, founder of Anduril Industries, said the defense technology company will go public.
When asked about plans for an initial public offering, Luckey told CNBC’s Closing Bell: Overtime in a video interview that Anduril is “definitely going to be a publicly traded company.”
“We are running this company to be the shape of a publicly traded company,” added Luckey, who did not give details about the timeline of an IPO during the interview.
Latest Funding Round
Luckey’s remarks came days after Anduril Executive Chairman Trae Stephens announced that the defense tech startup raised $2.5 billion in a round of Series G funding led by Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm Founders Fund, which contributed $1 billion.
The latest funding round brings the defense tech company’s valuation to $30.5 billion.
“As we continue working on building a company that has the capacity to scale into the largest problems for the national security community, we thought it was really important to shore up the balance sheet and make sure we have the ability to deploy capital into these manufacturing and production problem sets that we’re working on,” Stephens told Bloomberg TV.
In February, Anduril signed a term sheet to raise up to $2.5 billion in capital.
Arsenal-1
When asked about how Anduril will spend the money from the latest funding round, Luckey told CNBC that the company will allocate about $900 million to build a new manufacturing facility in Ohio, called Arsenal-1.
“We’re going to be hiring thousands of people there. It’s about 5 million square feet of cutting-edge manufacturing space that we’re going to be using to build autonomous fighter jets, missiles, torpedoes, a whole bunch of other really cool weapon systems,” the Anduril founder stated.
Partnership With Meta, OpenAI
Anduril recently announced a partnership with Meta to build and deploy integrated extended reality systems that could enhance battlefield awareness and enable intuitive control of autonomous platforms.
In 2014, Facebook, now under Meta, acquired Oculus, a virtual reality headset company founded by Luckey.
“I’m working with Meta because we’ve buried the hatchet and because there’s a lot of incredible technology that they have, that paired with Anduril, can make a huge difference for the American warfighter,” Luckey noted.
In December, ChatGPT developer OpenAI teamed up with Anduril to integrate its artificial intelligence technology with the latter’s counter-unmanned aircraft systems and Lattice software network to improve U.S. defense systems that protect U.S. and allied personnel against drones and other aerial attacks.
Expanding Connected Warfare Capabilities
In May, Anduril agreed to acquire Klas, a Dublin-based engineering and design company specializing in edge computing and tactical communications, to expand its portfolio of autonomous systems and connected warfare capabilities.
With Klas-built rugged hardware, Anduril intends to enhance its capability to deliver integrated platforms to support operations in demanding environments at the tactical edge.
