Mach Industries, a three-year-old defense technology startup led by 22-year-old founder and CEO Ethan Thornton, raised a $300 million Series C on Monday, valuing the company at $1.8 billion.
Growth nearly quadruples the company’s value in one year. In June 2025, Mach raised $100 million at a valuation of $470 million. Other investors include Bedrock Capital, Sequoia Capital and Khosla Ventures.
The round was led by deep tech fund Infinite Capital and Ribbit Capital, known for fintech and hot deals everywhere lately – from startups coding AI. Cognition for New clouds like Crusoe.
Because building autonomous weapons is a capital-intensive industry, Thornton began actively raising money a few months ago, he told TechCrunch, and quickly discovered the round would be popular with investors.
“We went out to raise $200 ($million) and we were oversubscribed at 200 and we were happy with the price, so we decided to raise to 300. We’re still oversubscribed at the 300 mark,” Thornton said of the fundraising effort.
Founded in 2023, Mach and its growth have been a wild ride for the popular Thornton. He dropped out of MIT at the age of 19 to start a company. VC enthusiasm is high for several reasons. In addition to artificial intelligence, defense technology is currently a hot area for investment, as newly developed autonomous weapons and drone defense systems prove themselves in combat in Ukraine.
Mach was also productive in a short period of time. The Huntington Beach, California-based company now has five autonomous vehicles in development: the Viper, a jet-powered vertical flying vehicle; Glide, a high-altitude glider capable of launching weapons; Stratos, an aerial surveillance platform; Dart, a low-cost counter-drone interceptor; and the Pike, designed to launch long-range munitions. The company says that production of at least three of these systems will begin next year.
Plus, just this week, it won a Defense Department contract to build a new, sixth vehicle that the startup has never publicly discussed, Thornton tells TechCrunch. The contract was awarded to the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to develop the Navy’s new “runway-independent strike aircraft,” as the startup describes it.
That would be for a very large aircraft, Thornton says, which could also have applications in the commercial industry.
It has also grown from about ten employees in its first year to 350 employees today, with a 115,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Huntington Beach and design and manufacturing facilities in several other locations.
“So by the end of this year, in 2026, we’ll be bringing in four new manufacturing facilities,” Thornton said.
But another reason VCs are writing big checks is that Mach revolutionized the industry (literally) last month when it acquired solid rocket motor (SRM) startup Exquadrum in a $50 million cash-and-equity deal. As TechCrunch previously reported. The startup said it beat out eight other potential buyers.
SRMs are in acute shortage as drones create unprecedented demand in a market dominated by two major defense contractors, Aerojet Rocketdyne and Northrop Grumman. The purchase period can be extended for years.
With this purchase, Mach controls its own destiny for rocket engines while also launching a new commercial business called Mach Energetics to sell the engines. While Thornton declined to share revenue, he said the current mix is 50/50 between sales to the government and sales to other companies.
Thornton recalls a moment last year when all the company’s rapid growth hit him. Two years ago, general meetings were held in the conference hall “like 12 people”. “We had about 200-plus chairs at our two-year-old party, and it was standing room only.”
However, he said he was proud of the speed with which the product was developed. This is the whole reason for his company and the defense technology industry. The idea behind these tech VC-backed startups is to bring faster, more cost-effective products to military and related commercial uses, as opposed to the expensive, bespoke offerings offered by legacy defense contractors.
“Traditionally, it takes four years to build a jet engine. That’s about the fastest you’ll find in this space. And we went from no team to building a team to running a jet engine in about eight months,” Thornton said.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This does not affect our editorial independence.
