Anduril Industries to Go Public, Says CEO Palmer Luckey
Anduril Industries, a defense technology startup founded by Palmer Luckey in 2017, is planning to go public, Luckey told CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime” on Tuesday. “We are definitely going to be a publicly traded company,” Luckey stated, adding that the company is being run with the structure of a public company in mind.
The decision to go public comes as Anduril continues to make significant strides in the defense tech industry, competing with established leaders like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. According to Chairman Trae Stephens, who spoke to Bloomberg last week, Anduril recently secured $2.5 billion in funding at a valuation of $30.5 billion. This valuation more than doubles the company’s worth from its previous funding round in August, led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund.
Luckey emphasized that going public is crucial for Anduril to secure significant trillion-dollar defense contracts. “There isn’t really a path” for a company like Anduril to win such contracts without being publicly traded, he explained. While a specific timeline for the IPO was not provided, the company’s preparations for public trading are underway.
Anduril has been making notable moves in the industry, including taking over Microsoft’s $22 billion augmented-reality headset program for the U.S. Army. The company has also partnered with OpenAI and announced plans to invest approximately $1 billion in a manufacturing facility in Ohio.
The company’s rise to becoming one of the most highly valued private U.S. technology companies is significant, especially after Luckey was ousted from Meta (then Facebook) following its acquisition of his virtual reality headset company Oculus in 2014. Despite this, Luckey has managed to secure substantial funding and partnerships, including a recent collaboration with Meta for creating virtual and augmented reality devices for the U.S. Army.
Anduril’s prominence in the defense tech space was highlighted by its ranking as No.1 on the CNBC Disruptor 50 list this year, demonstrating the growing interest in defense technology companies.
