We’re not saying crazy cash is flying around the defense tech world because of our summit, but we’re not not saying it.
Yesterday, “domain dominance” defense startup and 8VC darling CHAOS Industries announced that it’s raised $510M in new funding at a $4.5B valuation, led by Valor Equity Partners (friends of Mr. Musk and early backers of Tesla and SpaceX) with participation from 8VC and Accel. The company raised a $275M Series C just four months ago.
This new chunk of dough brings the company’s total funding raised to $1B. To quote the Tectonic team when we looked at our phones after the panels yesterday, “God fucking damn.”
In the dark: CHAOS is one of those spooky defense companies where, at times, you’re like, “Well, what do they actually do?” According to the official statement announcing the raise, the company “creates time…redefining modern defense with omniscient systems that give the ultimate advantage—domain dominance.”
Let’s break down what that actually means.
- Basically, CHAOS builds pretty powerful long-range radar and sensor systems that can detect aerial threats—like drones—earlier than traditional radar.
- CHAOS says that these “omniscient systems” can “sense 10 minutes sooner, track up to 250km, and protect at $100/km2.”
- All of those fun detect-y things are plugged into something they call Coherent Distributed Networks (CDN)—basically the software that makes these sensors and radars into a network and creates one single operating picture. It can also be plugged into different C2 systems.
The company has two (publicly unveiled) products:
- Vanquish: A distributed early warning radar that’s got a small footprint and is “expeditionary,” meaning it can be moved around. It’s good for short- to mid-range threats.
- Astria: A long-range radar for persistent monitoring and “extended range surveillance.”
They also recently acquired Ziva Corporation, the “global leader in wireless time synchronization—a cornerstone capability for next-generation radar, sensing, and distributed battlefield effects.” Plus, they’ve teamed up with crowd-favorite Forterra to put their radars and sensors on the company’s vehicles. Friends in high places, etc.
Fast friends: If you’re setting your sights on total “domain dominance” (and playing around with a billion dollhairs) it helps to have a good team. And that CHAOS does.
- The company was founded back in 2022 by John Tenet, Bo Marr, Gavin Hood, and Brett Cummings. Fun fact: Tenet is former CIA director George Tenet’s son.
- Cummings and Tenet were both former 8VC; Hood led global business development for Palantir and Marr was at Epirus and Raytheon.
On the books: In September, Axios reported that CHAOS had scored a $2M contract to adapt Astria for training at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida and secured a $10M House-approved appropriation for testing and training using CDN. The company also says it’s pushing into the Middle East and that its tech has been deployed in Ukraine.
If those sound like baby contracts for a $4.5B company, well, they are. CHAOS does seem to do some commercial work—airports need protecting too, after all—but we’re getting the sense that we might not have a full view of the $510M master plan quite yet.