Defense technology startup Anduril raises $1.48B in funding

Anduril Industries Inc., a defense technology startup launched in 2017 by Oculus VR Inc. founder Palmer Luckey, has raised a $1.48 billion funding round.


The Series E round values Anduril at $8.48 billion, Axios reported today. Valor Equity Partners led the investment. It was joined by more than a dozen other investors, including Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst and Lightspeed Ventures.


Reports of Anduril’s latest funding round first emerged in May. Previously, the company last June closed a $450 million Series D funding round. Anduril has raised a total of $1.9 billion from investors since launch, according to Crunchbase. 


Anduril was launched in 2017 by Palmer Luckey, the founder of virtual reality headset maker Oculus VR. It was acquired in 2014 by Meta Platforms Inc., then Facebook Inc., for $2 billion. The technology that Meta obtained through acquisition later became part of its metaverse business, which makes virtual reality headsets and related software products.


The company develops defense systems for the U.S. and allied nations. Its products reportedly range from surveillance towers to drones. It also sells a software platform, called Lattice, that can collect sensor data from multiple defense systems and make it available to military personnel through a centralized interface.


The software market is a particularly major focus area for Anduril. According to the Financial Times, most of its engineers work on its Lattice platform.

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