Venture-Capital Backed Weapons and Military Startups
A selection of six of the most important weapons startups being built by venture capitalists. There are others — we are in the middle of a lethal weapons boom out of Silicon Valley venture capital — but here is an introduction to the “best and brightest” aka the worst and most evil and lethal (that we know of).
ANDURIL
Funds Raised: $2.2 billion
Funded by: Andreessen Horowitz, In-Q-Tel (CIA venture arm), Founder’s Fund, General Catalyst, Lux Capital
Founded: 2017
Anduril is the “prime” of the venture capital military build-out, a mass contractor to the Department of Defense, competing directly with Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. Anduril delivers a new vision of warfare, based on autonomous vehicles for land and sea, mass-scale lethal drone warfare, and AI-enabled battlefield intelligence. They are the biggest VC-backed weapons startup, and have 2,000 employees.
Anduril offers a subscription-based model for its weapons systems, and fronts R&D costs, by venture capital taking on the initial R&D costs instead of the military. This is the pattern we see across these weapons startups. This change in the model of military procurement is much more attractive and friendly to Pentagon funding, and by extension, puts a much higher degree of autonomy in the hands of venture capitalists.
Anduril has been active at the US/Mexico border providing border towers that assist directly in rounding up women and children for detainment in what is a globally condemned human rights abuse crisis. They were on the ground in the Ukraine war immediately, gaining a new level of battlefield experience and exposure. Recent comments by Anduril’s CEO, Palmer Luckey, indicate that Anduril is active in Israel, stating in a recent Wall Street Journal segment, “Israel has my unqualified support. They have the support of Anduril in a moral sense. I obviously can’t talk about what we’re doing over there specifically.”
Products:
Anvil: Anvil is a drone for intercepting enemy drones in live combat zones. It comes in a “munition variant”, “armed with a high-explosive payload”. Fitting Anduril’s focus on out-of-box weapons systems, it comes with a ground support system that “stores and deploys Anvil on demand”.
Ghost: Ghost is a 10lb drone for long range intelligence, surveillance and recon (ISR) in difficult terrains, “with advanced computer vision algorithms to autonomously detect, classify, and track objects of interest.”
Menace: Menace is a mobile command station for classified mission planning, base defense and security, and is integrated with heat and cooling, communications and compute capabilities.
Sentry: Sentry is Anduril’s surveillance tower, which has been in use at the US/Mexico border for years now, in collaboration with Elbit, Israel’s primary weapons manufacturer. In a customer testimonial on the Anduril site, from a Del Rio chief: “ASTs are tactically placed along the border, automatically detecting and tracking illegal border crossers. This infusion of technology is a force multiplier, greatly expanding our capabilities.”
WISP: Wisp is a high-quality imaging surveillance system for long range, wide area military operations, leveraging artificial intelligence. The system can be used with a single operator, “using only a laptop workstation.” Here again is the focus on speed of deployment and small operating footprint.
People:
Founders Palmer Luckey, Matt Grimm, Trae Stephens, and Joseph Chen. Background of the leadership team includes former Founder’s Fund, Palantir, Oculus, Meta, the Department of Defense, and various positions under John McCain, Condaleeza Rice and Colin Powell.
CASTELION
Funds Invested: $19.6 million
Funded by: Andreessen Horowitz
Founded: 2022
Castelion builds long-range strike hypersonic weapons. This company emerged from “stealth” just recently – stealth being the industry term for a “secret” startup, pre-launch. The ability for weapons startups to stay in “stealth mode” for long periods of time without anyone knowing they exist, is a challenge for researchers and public awareness. Their website boasts of compatibility as “strike systems” in war planes, and for rapid development and testing of hypersonic weapons. As it builds out its full capabilities and product strategy, Castelion is working on “solid rocket motors, low-cost avionics and ultra-high temperature ceramic matrix composite (CMC) materials”. Castelion highlights how quickly venture capitalists are moving to create these startups, and how fast they are getting into production-readiness for war scenarios.
People:
Bryon Hargis, Sean Pitt and Andrew Kreitz. Leadership includes a number of former SpaceX executives, as well as Goldman Sachs and In-Q-Tel (CIA venture fund).
SHIELD AI
Funds Invested: $773 million
Funded by: Andreessen Horowitz, US Innovative Technology Fund, ARK Investment Management
Founded: 2015
Shield AI creates battlefield, autonomous drone swarms and aircraft systems, with the strategic emphasis on AI piloting. The mission of the company is a battlefield with “AI pilots powering every military asset: aircraft, drones, ships, satellites and submarines.” Shield AI claims to be “the first and only fully autonomous AI pilot deployed in combat since 2018.” In spring 2023, Shield AI stated that they have completed over 250 over-seas deployments. The latest numbers show about 500 employees. They hold significant contracts with the Air Force and others in the Department of Defense, and have close ongoing partnerships with Northrop Grumman and Boeing. A major focus is on AI piloting for the F-16, with the goal of adding additional fighter jets.
Shield AI situates itself in terms of tensions between the US and China, emphasizing the need for superior war technology against China. We see this aggravation of tension with China across the VC military portfolios.
Like in all of these companies, Shield AI employees are active in the field with military personnel; it is not just that the systems are sold but that they are fully supported by the startup’s operators.
Products:
V-BAT: V-BAT “teams” are drone swarms powered by AI piloting leveraging Nvidia GPUs. The drone swarm operates via “intelligent teaming – the ability to autonomously read and react to each other, adversaries, and the environment to accomplish the mission.” The low operating footprint “gives battalions the combat power of a corps or a division. A single warfighter can now command teams of aircraft to execute commander’s intent.” Low operator footprint is also a main talking point of Anduril. Like Anduril, we see the shift to lower-cost autonomous hardware systems over large, expensive warcraft of the past; Shield AI promises the military “mass that will overwhelm adversaries through superiority of numbers which will saturate area defense systems and will force them to waste guided-munition stockpiles”.
VBats are designed to carry “precision strike munition with compressed carriage design and explosive power equivalent to 80% of 500 lbs bomb.” Importantly, battlefield intelligence and AI wargaming and scenarios are part of this full-service offering. Warfighter customers are presented “with a ready-to-fly system tailored for this mission, which is tested and validated across thousands of simulated missions.”
Nova 2: A light-weight drone “named by joint US and Israeli forces as the ‘Most Mission Capable Indoor Drone’ in the world,” designed for large buildings and subterranean structures. “As Nova 2 autonomously clears, people are detected and auto-populated on a map while vibration notifications alert the user. In real time, Nova 2 builds 3D multi-story maps, providing an unrivaled common operating picture of the battlefield.”
Hivemind: Hivemind is the core AI piloting software platform that powers Shield AI’s physical weapons systems. Hivemind is able to operate in areas without GPS or communications, allowing it to function in “highly contested” areas; it removes the need for human operators in these environments.
People:
Founders Ryan Tseng and Brandon Tseng. Leadership includes ex US Marine, Navy Seals, Lockheed Martin, Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, attack helicopter pilots, and the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute.
SKYDIO
Funds Invested: $570 million
Funded by: Andreessen Horowitz, Axon (formerly TASER), Accel, NVIDIA
Founded: 2014
Skydio manufactures drones that use AI to fly and avoid objects autonomously, as well as perform some tasks such as surveillance without the intervention of a human operator. Their various drones are equipped with multiple cameras, thermal imaging, forward looking infrared, GPS, and are supported by software solutions to automate drone navigation and operations, as well as integration with other battlefield technologies.
Skydio claims to be “trusted by every branch of the US Department of Defense, all FVEY countries and across NATO”. Listed on their site are the U.S. Army and the Marines as customers. While the public doesn’t even know about these startups, they are already extremely integrated into the military and defense formation.
Skydio drones can “fly undetected in contested airspace” and there is a focus again on enabling battlefield intelligence through AI: “Count on always-on AI-driven obstacle avoidance to manage flight with minimum impact to the warfighter’s cognitive load, even in complex environments.” With autonomous technology, Skydio promises that “Skydio surveillance drones [are] easier to fly, so anyone on the [military] team can maneuver like a pro after just a few hours of training.” Like many of the surveillance and military startups, there is a commercial component, with a significant base of corporate clients as well, highlighting the formation of these startups for dual use across battlefield and enterprise.
Products:
SKYDIO X2 and X10: The X2 is Skydio’s flagship drone featuring an optional infrared thermal sensor, a ruggedized airframe and night flight using gps and inertial navigation. The X10 is a smaller drone with swappable sensors and modular attachments.
SKYDIO AUTONOMY: Autonomy is Skydio’s name for the combination of software infrastructure and drone design features that enable the automation of drone flight, obstacle avoidance, data gathering and nighttime flight.
SKYDIO DOCK: Dock is a drone storage and deployment device intended for remote deployment of drones without direct human intervention.
People:
Founders Adam Bry, Abraham Bachrach and Matt Donahoe. Leadership includes ex MIT, Google, U.S. Airforce, U.S. Navy and Northrop Grumman.
HADRIAN
Funds Invested: $99.5 million
Funded by: Andreessen Horowitz, Founder’s Fund, Lux Capital
Founded: 2020
Hadrian is building factories to manufacture precision components for the space and defense industries. They promise 10x faster production and a reduction by half in the cost of making weapons and warfare vehicles including rockets, satellites, jets and drones, claiming to ship machined parts in 5-21 days. They currently have one factory in Los Angeles, and a second, also in LA, that is 5x larger.
Hadrian claims it is already “serving several of the US’ most prominent Rocket & Satellite manufacturers.” Hadrian, like the entire venture capital military build-out, is focused on taking over from existing major defense contractors and replacing these with venture capital-backed systems: “Being the planet’s most efficient factory means nothing unless we can scale up to billions in revenue capacity, fast enough to replace the aging high precision machining supply chain in the US. If we don't, our most important Space & Defense companies will be caught flat footed in what might be the most critical decade in the US’ history.”
Hadrian also highlights how venture capitalists are building the full supply chain for weapons, including R&D, factories, hardware and software, training, operating staff, etc. In this case we see how these factories will support other parts of the venture capital weapons portfolio as well. Funded by a small grouping of VC firms, these weapons companies are designed to operate together on and off the battlefield as part of a full weapons R&D and production supply chain. What is proposed is a complete vision of venture capital-based warfare.
People: Founder/CEO, Chris Power. Leadership includes ex SpaceX, Amazon Web Services and GE Aviation.
SHIFT
Funds Invested: $4.5 million
Funded by: Andreessen Horowitz
Founded: 2016
Speaking to venture capitalist’s holistic approach to militarizing the industry, Shift is a “military talent exchange for America”, on “a mission to supercharge the defense-industrial partnership that underpins America’s national security and economic vitality”. It is focused on integrating military personnel into startups or VC firms for fellowships; these programs have brought intelligence officers, active military, special forces, and other “warfighters” into venture capital firms, and accelerator and defense startups, including Anduril, Shield AI, and venture firms including Marque Ventures, Insight Partners, Lightspeed Ventures, Refinery and Andreessen Horowitz. This is designed to be a mutually beneficial arrangement between venture capital and the DoD: “We deliver cross-industry upskilling programs that identify emerging military leaders, invest in their future, and bring innovation back to the Department of Defense.” They offer 8 week and 12 month fellowships.
Products:
Defense Ventures Program: “A fellowship for innovative officers, enlisted, and DoD civilians to embed with startups, accelerators, and investors… to bring the latest commercial tech trends and innovation back to the Department of Defense…”; “By leading public-private partnerships, you will create real solutions to the world's toughest problems and speed the delivery of top-tier technologies to the warfighter.”
People: Founder and CEO, Mike Slagh, former Navy and Afghanistan war veteran.