Autonomous Startup Companies

Happy Wednesday everyone! Welcome to the Autonomous Platforms of the Future Newsletter, designed to inform you about future game changing products, technologies, and platforms. This week I'll be focusing on discussing autonomous startup companies in the Aerospace & Defense (A&D) industry.

With the growing need for the advancement of autonomous capabilities on multiple platforms in the air, sea, land, and space realm, the government will look to work with more companies outside of major government contractors currently. In theory, no one company will be able to keep up with all the autonomous capabilities that customers will demand in the federal and commercial spaces. This has and will open up a numerous opportunities to other companies that can fulfill gaps for key capabilities. I'll also highlight a huge success story of a startup company that's making major moves to disrupt the A&D industry with the products it's bringing to market.

In general, the A&D market is regulated by policies and laws to promote fair and open industry competition between companies which enables startups and other small businesses to enter markets previously believed to be closed for the major federal government contractors. Recently, I've seen an uptick in the amount of startup companies excelling within the federal government space because of this. Specific to the autonomous market, being a small, agile startup company enables you to be more flexible in implementing the necessary changes the various government customers may demand versus a large government contractor.

In my opinion, it is not difficult to break into the A&D autonomous market due to three factors:

• Capabilities brought forward

• Ever changing customer requirements (flexibility)

• Current government competition policies

As companies bring forward major advancements in technologies, the industry will make room for those critical disrupters.

Next, I'd like to highlight a great startup company that's making waves in the Autonomous A&D industry. Their technology is disrupting the market and if I were CEO, I'd be heavily investing in their future products.

Now lets discuss in more detail Anduril Industries.

Description:

Anduril Industries is a defense product company that builds technology for military agencies and border surveillance. Anduril commits top technical talent to solve complex national security challenges. The company is building the next generation of technology that will aid and protect those who serve on the front lines defending the nation and its interests.

Anduril's mission is to develop innovative technology that enables America and its allies to maintain global leadership now and into the future. Anduril's major products include unmanned aerial systems (UAS), counter-UAS (CUAS), semi-portable autonomous surveillance systems, and networked command and control software.

Brian Schimpf, Joseph Chen, Matt Grimm, Palmer Luckey, and Trae Stephens founded Anduril in 2017. It has its headquarters in Costa Mesa, California.

Key Products:

Ghost Shark - is a modular, multi-purpose capability that can flexibly respond to the Australian Defense Force’s mission requirements, creating an agile force multiplier for Defense. The Ghost Shark Program is a collaboration between Anduril, the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator (ASCA) and Defense Science and Technology Group (DSTG) to deliver an operationally relevant capability within a fraction of traditional defense timelines that is ahead of schedule and on budget.

Menace-X - an expeditionary command, control, communications, and computing (C4) vehicle-based system that extends strategic and operational-level capabilities to the tactical edge. Built to operate in denied, disrupted, intermittent, and limited (DDIL) communication environments, Menace-X enables resilient command and control of complex mission sets, such as deep sensing and coordination of maritime surface fires, in a highly-mobile form factor. Menace-X is easily transported by MV-22, CH-53, MH-47, C-130 and almost any other air and naval platform to provide on-demand C2 anywhere on Earth.

Roadrunner & Roadrunner-M - Roadrunner is a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) autonomous air vehicle designed to be customized for various missions. Roadrunner-M is a high-explosive interceptor variant of Roadrunner for ground-based air defense that can rapidly identify, intercept and destroy an array of aerial threats that are up to 100 times more expensive, or be recovered and reused at near-zero cost.

Fury - is a high-performance, multi-mission group 5 autonomous air vehicle (AAV) enabling trusted and collaborative autonomy for the high-end fight.

Anduril has raised a total of $2.2B in funding over 8 rounds since 2017. The latest venture investment round concluded February 20, 2024 from the Secondary Market round.

Company revenue is estimated between $500M to $1B.

Backed by leading investors such as Adreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Valor Equity Partners, Elad Gil, and Founders Fund, Anduril is primed to be a huge disrupter for the Aerospace industry and grow exponentially in the coming years. In total, the company is funded by 40 investors with E1 Ventures and Palumni VC being the most recent.

If I were CEO, I would be betting to see this company become a major defense contractor sooner rather than later with all the key product offerings and capabilities its advancing forward.

For even more information about this company's products, check out their website below.

Anduril has been at the forefront of some really game changing awards recently. In just 2024, several agencies of the government have awarded Anduril key programs. Here are some to highlight below:

• The United States Air Force announced that Anduril has been selected as one of two vendors to move forward on the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program. Over the next phase, Anduril will design, manufacture, and test production-representative CCAs.

• The U.S. Navy selected Anduril and its Dive family of large autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to prototype distributed, long-range, persistent underwater sensing and payload delivery in contested environments. Anduril provides a family of AI-enabled AUVs that are designed to perform a wide range of defense and commercial missions. Dive-LD is a flexible autonomous underwater vehicle, capable of rapidly integrating complex payloads and multi-sensor suites.

• Anduril Industries is part of the team selected by the Army to develop and manufacture the Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN) ground station system, the Army’s next-generation deep-sensing capability. The industry-defining team, led by Palantir Technologies, is made up of the nation’s leading traditional and non-traditional contractors. Under the partnership, Anduril will spearhead hardware design, development, and scaled manufacturing across 10 TITAN vehicles.

• The U.S. Army and the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) have selected defense technology company Anduril Industries to develop and prototype an architecture and framework for software-hardware integration of the U.S. Army’s Robotic Combat Vehicle (RCV) program. Under the contract, Anduril will produce a prototype architecture and framework that will enable RCV variants to autonomously navigate varied terrain, seamlessly transition between multiple third-party and government-owned autonomous mobility stacks, and allow for autonomous or remote management of vehicle payloads, sensors, and effectors. The RCV program is one of the flagship ground autonomy programs for the Army.

Strategic Announcements & Key Capabilities

HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, the world’s largest commercial and military shipbuilder, and Anduril Industries, the world’s leading venture-backed defense company, have agreed to a strategic partnership to reimagine and rebuild naval power for the United States, the Republic of Korea, and their allies and partners.

This agreement brings together the complementary capabilities of two leading companies.

With all this activity in the industry, its no wonder why there's such a buzz going on around this amazing company.

There's not enough words to express the amount of momentum Anduril is building in the Aerospace and Defense industry. It's amazing to see start-ups like them make such an impact and disrupt the market to advance critical technologies for the future. I'm a big fan of the company and plan to follow their development journey on all their key programs. For those entrepreneurs out there, here's a great blueprint to follow for breaking into the federal government world.

As I look to wrap up this week's newsletter, I'm more than happy to help those entrepreneurs out there that are looking to get insight on how to approach this complex industry whether through board of directors involvements or consulting opportunities. I'm passionate about technology and would love to help you on your journey.

Thanks for joining me this week. Stay tuned for my next technology talk by subscribing below and sharing with colleagues you think it would benefit.

If you'd like to collaborate with me on future technology opportunities, use my calendly link to book a time. Hope you have a great rest of your week.