Ethan Thornton is trying to do everything all at once
Ethan Thornton dropped out of MIT at 19 to build weapons. The first one, a hydrogen-powered system he prototyped with parts from Home Depot and Amazon, didn’t work out —…
Defense tech darling Mach Industries hits $1.8B valuation, a 4x jump in a year
Mach Industries, the three-year-old defense tech startup run by 22-year-old founder and CEO Ethan Thornton, has raised a $300 million Series C at a $1.8 billion valuation, the company announced…
Vertical Aerospace has a plan to capitalize on Europe’s defense tech moment
Russia’s war in Ukraine and President Donald Trump’s reluctance to support NATO allies has led to a boost in funding for European defense tech. And across industries, startups are leveraging…
Rising star defense tech startup Mach Industries is raising $100 million, sources say
Mach Industries, the defense tech founded by 21-year-old Ethan Thornton, is about to close a fresh $100 million in financing co-led by new investor Khosla and existing investor Bedrock Capital,…
British startup Isembard lands $9M to reshore manufacturing for critical industries
Geopolitical pressures are accelerating a demand in many countries and regions to reshore — that is, to redevelop critical industry infrastructure, and to bring back businesses, which had moved or…
Defense tech Theseus landed Y Combinator, the US Special Forces and $4.3M from a tweet
On February 18, 2024, Ian Laffey posted on X that he and two others he’d just met built a cheap drone at a hackathon that calculated its coordinates simply by…
How a hydrogen explosion led a teenage founder to become Sequoia’s first defense tech investment
As Sequoia Capital’s first defense tech investment, Mach Industries is an industry darling, raising over $80 million since its founding in 2023. Its founder, Ethan Thornton, now 21, began Mach…
Y Combinator’s police surveillance darling Flock Safety raises $275M at $7.5B valuation
Flock Safety and one of its long-time VCs, Bedrock Capital, announced Thursday that the startup raised a fresh $275 million at a $7.5 billion valuation. Flock makes computer vision-enabled video…
In defense tech, Lithuania’s sovereign VC fund is one step ahead
Europe is waking up to the need to invest in defense, and so are European VCs. But with a painful history of Soviet occupations, Lithuania didn’t wait for the third…
Alpine Eagle secures funding from European backers for counter-drone tech amid rising threats
The war in Ukraine has brought drones to the forefront of modern warfare, creating a surge in demand for counter-drone systems. However, legacy solutions to counter drones, such as ground-based…