True to its name, Mach Industries is moving speedy quick, and investors are lining up to add fuel to the fire.
A little more than a week after announcing the $50M acquisition of propulsion system and solid rocket motor-maker Exquadrum, the Huntington Beach startup announced late yesterday that it’s closed a $300M Series C co-led by Infinite Capital and Ribbit Capital. The round brings Mach’s valuation to a cool $1.8B, wayyy up from $470M after its $100M Series B a year ago.
- Mach’s long-time backers Bedrock Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Khosla Ventures also came back to the cap table.
Another day, another defense tech unicorn, but not many others are run by a 22-year-old college dropout. Good thing he can legally pop some champagne this time around.
Mach speed: If you’ve been reading Tectonic, Mach probably rings a bell. The startup—founded in 2022—has made a big splash with a wide range of boomy and zoomy tech.
That includes:
- Stratos: A “pseudo-satellite” that deploys communications tech, sensors, and effects from the stratosphere via a high-altitude balloon.
- Viper: A turbojet-powered vertical takeoff one-way attack UAS. The Army Applications Laboratory awarded them a contract to build a cruise missile variant in 2024.
- Pike: A small plane-like drone (formerly called Venom) built in collaboration with Divergent. It went from concept to first flight in a lightning-quick 71 days. “Basically think much larger, longer range Viper,” CEO Ethan Thornton told Tectonic last month.
- Dart: A low-cost kinetic drone interceptor designed to take down Group 1-3 drones. Mach also designed a ground-based radar system to go with it.
- Glide: A high-altitude glider with a strike system capable of long-range, low-signature delivery.
They also have a new-age “flexible factory” called Forge (think a defense manufacturing WeWork) and, through the addition of Exquadrum, a new energetics unit (rebranded as Mach Energetics) to provide in-house motors and propulsion systems for Mach’s tech and other customers.
- Mach is also inheriting Exquadrum’s facilities and their book of contracts, covering deals with prime and startup customers and the Pentagon, which includes work on the Golden Dome.
Young money: Mach’s range of products—many in line with tech in high demand from the US military—and their rapid growth had investors lining up to get involved.
- According to Bloomberg, Thornton “initially sought just $200 million and turned down offers for an additional $100 million.”
Scale up: With the $300M in fresh capital, Thornton has his eyes on boosting Mach’s headcount, speeding up the “execution of existing government contracts,” accelerating product development and production “across all platforms,” and expanding Forge.
- The company told Tectonic that those “existing government contracts” are primarily Mach’s own (as opposed to Exquadrum’s), and that all of their “publicly released” products are under contract, “except one, which we are developing based on conviction in the requirement.”
- Mach teased that “larger contract awards will be forthcoming that show near-term production focus,” along with “additional announcements related to Forge and our broader manufacturing and development footprint.” Mysterious indeed.
High flyer: The Series C has nearly quadrupled Mach’s valuation in less than a year, launching the company into unicorn land. And according to the startup, that’s not just based on ecosystem-wide hype around defense tech (though that never hurts).
“At a high level, the increase reflects continued progress across the business,” the company said. “We’ve built a strong contract pipeline, advanced the technical maturity of our three foundational platforms, introduced two new solutions addressing critical defense needs, and continued to grow the team, infrastructure, and capabilities required to execute.”
“Taken together, those developments position the company very differently than it was at the time of the previous round,” they added.