Sequoia-backed Mach Industries, the defense tech company founded by 21-year-old Ethan Thornton, has won a contract with the U.S. Army and is moving forward with plans for its first manufacturing facility. Thornton, the company’s CEO, revealed the news to TechCrunch. The 115,000-square-foot factory will be located in Huntington Beach, California, where Mach’s headquarters is also situated.
While the location may seem expensive for a weapons factory, the Southern California area, home to SpaceX, has become a hub for the expanding U.S. defense tech industry. Mach also announced its selection by the Army Applications Laboratory to develop a vertical takeoff precision cruise missile called “Strategic Strike.” This was a developmental contract awarded in the fourth quarter of 2024.
According to Thornton, the contract announcement coincides with the successful completion of initial flight tests last month. Regarding the factory, Mach, along with companies like Anduril, aims to innovate. Mach’s factory, dubbed Forge 1, will be the first of several “decentralized” factories planned by the company. “Instead of very centralized factories, we will build many, many smaller factories to actually have a survival defense industrial base,” he explained.
The factories are designed to handle all phases of production, from raw materials to final assembly. In addition to U.S. sites yet to be determined, Mach also hopes to establish international locations. The Huntington factory is already producing the company’s primary products: Glide, a weapon, and Viper, a super-light, jet-powered vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).
Viper is known for its completely vertical takeoffs, eliminating the need for a runway. Mach claims that Viper is up to 300 times less expensive to produce than traditional UAVs. “Viper is manufacturable in that decentralized sort of web of factories, and that’s a huge deal. You don’t require specialty tooling to make it, which means that if the U.S. has to ramp up production, we won’t rely on these centralized locations,” Thornton stated. Glide is a bomb deployed from a balloon-like vehicle at the edge of space, designed to provide extended range (Mach claims it can reach any target on Earth) and increased difficulty for interception.
Thornton anticipates that the initial factory will eventually achieve a production capacity of 1,000 Vipers and 3,000 Glides per month.
Mach Industries
Mach Industries has become a prominent defense tech startup due to its status as Sequoia’s first defense tech investment and Thornton’s young age when he founded the company. He left MIT at 19 to focus on Mach, securing Stephanie Zhan and Shaun Maguire of Sequoia as investors. They led Mach’s $5.7 million seed round, announced in June 2023. In October 2023, Geoff Lewis, founder of Bedrock Capital, spearheaded Mach’s $79 million Series A funding round.
While youth is increasingly common among defense tech founders (Palmer Luckey was in his mid-20s when he founded Anduril), Thornton’s initiative began in high school. “Back in high school, I ran a wood and metal workshop to actually bootstrap the company and start making initial products. And then probably the highest risk thing I did, I dropped out of MIT – before we had capital, or before I had a team,” he said.
Mach has become a significant player in the defense tech sector, counting among its advisors former Palantir recruiter Peterson Conway. The company now employs dozens of staff members.
