Mach Industries doubles valuation to $3.7 billion in three months

Mach Industries, a defense-tech startup that builds unmanned military vehicles and weapons, has raised a fresh $600 million in a Series C extension round, the company announced Thursday. The round doubles Mach’s valuation to $3.7 billion — a two-fold jump in just three months since the original Series C closed in June at $300 million and a $1.8 billion valuation. Investors across both tranches include Ribbit Capital, Infinite Capital, Bedrock Capital, and Sequoia.

The pace echoes the company’s prior fundraising: a $100 million round announced in June 2025 valued Mach at $470 million, a figure the new Series C has now quadrupled. Mach manufactures a range of unmanned systems, including vertical takeoff and landing drones, long-range strike systems, and counter-drone systems, out of a 115,000-square-foot manufacturing facility at its headquarters in Huntington Beach, California, with additional facilities elsewhere in the state.

The company’s pitch is that its highly integrated systems cost less than those built by incumbent defense contractors. In May, Mach acquired solid rocket motor startup Exquadrum in a $50 million cash-and-equity deal, beating out at least eight other potential buyers, the company said. The rise of drones has created a shortage of solid rocket motors in a market largely controlled by two incumbents, and Mach has since turned the acquisition into a new business line, Mach Energetics, which produces motors and energetic systems for other companies. A separate unit, Mach Propulsion, is working on jet engine manufacturing to address a similar bottleneck in that market.

Mach was founded and is run by 22-year-old Ethan Thornton, who dropped out of MIT at 19 to build the company. He landed Sequoia partners Stephanie Zhan and Shaun Maguire as investors — marking the storied venture firm’s first defense-tech investment — and after Mach won a U.S. Army contract earlier this year, it also caught the attention of Ribbit Capital, a firm once best known for fintech investing that has more recently backed a string of high-profile AI deals, including coding startup Cognition and neocloud provider Crusoe.

Why it matters

Mach’s rapid rise illustrates how venture capital — including firms like Sequoia making their first-ever defense-tech bet — is increasingly betting on startups that promise cheaper alternatives to incumbent military contractors.