Warhound raises $200M to engineer genetically enhanced war dogs

Colossal Biosciences co-founder Ben Lamm and Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey have been working on a plan to genetically engineer dogs for military, police and emergency-response work, and on Thursday that plan emerged from stealth as Warhound, backed by $200 million from backers that include In-Q-Tel, Sequoia and 8VC, a round that puts the new company’s valuation at $1.2 billion.

These are dogs built for jobs too dangerous for people or too complex for machines — bomb detection, searches and other specialized missions. Warhound’s launch materials put a number on the shortage: more than 80% of the dogs the U.S. military currently uses for working roles are sourced from Europe, yet less than half of those imports end up fit for service, leaving the U.S. increasingly dependent on foreign suppliers for animals that play a central role in its military and police work. Colossal’s hope is to use its gene-editing technology to produce dogs with traits suited to demanding missions, Colossal said in its launch materials.

Lamm said he first crossed paths with Luckey roughly a year earlier at an industry conference, where the Anduril co-founder raised the idea of doing more for the military’s working dogs; the two stayed in touch while Lamm researched the breeding problem — many dogs wash out of training over genetic issues like poor eyesight, cancer risk, hip dysplasia or muscle atrophy. Lamm believes dogs can be enhanced for health and longevity, plus traits like speed, agility and sharper scent-detection for bomb work. His team pulled cell lines from the top-performing breeds — Belgian Malinois and German Shepherd — into a biobank and will edit the genes, adding traits that help and removing ones that don’t, to build what he calls a new type of dog.

Anduril, meanwhile, is contributing software and hardware — protective vests and eye goggles with data sensors — that feed situational information back to the dogs’ handlers. “The idea is, if we make the dog safer, make it healthier, make it perform better, it’s going to perform better in the line of duty,” Lamm said, adding that Anduril’s additions work on top of the dog’s genetics rather than inside them. Luckey holds no equity in Warhound and is only a partner, Lamm said; Colossal owns the company and supports it by licensing its technology.

The first Warhound dogs are expected to be cloned and born early next year, with Lamm hoping they could enter service within two years, using cloning technology from Colossal affiliate Viagen. The startup hasn’t settled on pricing yet, but expects to sell to first responders, the Department of Defense, military units and police forces. The dogs will be trained and managed like any other military working dog, Lamm said, and Warhound is working with the American Humane Society to certify its training program.

Why it matters

Warhound is a bet that the same biotech pushing de-extinction can also solve a mundane defense-supply problem — too few working dogs — while pairing genetics with Anduril’s hardware to make each dog a data-generating asset in the field.