The Series E round valued Anduril at $8.5 billion.

California-based defense and security startup Anduril raised a $1.48 billion Series E led by Valor Equity Partners, with participation from Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, 8VC, Lux Capital, Thrive Capital, DFJ Growth, Elad Gil, Lachy Groom, Human Capital, Marlinspike, WCM Investment Management, MVP Ventures, Lightspeed Venture and US Innovative Technology Fund. (Silicon Angle)

Anduril, founded by Oculus founder Palmer Luckey in 2017, has nearly doubled its valuation from the previous funding in June 2021, when it raised $450 million in a Series D round.

In January, the company won a $1 billion contract from U.S. Special Operations Command to lead its counter-drone systems integration work.

“The new funding will enable Anduril to accelerate research and development to bring new, cutting edge, autonomous defense capabilities to the market and continue to mature and scale its current business lines with the U.S. Department of Defense as well as U.S. allies and partners,” the company said in a statement. “Anduril is building software-defined and hardware-enabled capabilities that solve mission needs with autonomy, today. Autonomous systems will enable the military to operate faster and at greater scale across both tactical and strategic operations.”

The latest $1.48 billion raise by Anduril, on rumor since spring, ranks second to the $1.725 billion investment that SpaceX Corp. closed in May, and said to be the largest funding so far in 2022.

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