It'll be very interesting to see if we partner up with
Anduril in the not too distant future.
The reason why I say this is because I just did a little bit of poking around and discovered that
Dr. Chaffra Affouda (see below)
, who is currently a Business Development Director at Anduril, worked as Senior Principal Systems Engineer at
Raytheon Intelligence & Space from Apr 2019 to Sep 2022 before joinnig Anduril.
While he was at Raytheon, Dr. Affouda worked on developing multi-functional,
neuromorphic infrared imaging sensors and cameras!
Prior to that he was with the US Naval Research Laboratory.
A.I. Military Start-Up Anduril Close to Deal That Would Value It at $28 Billion
The Southern California start-up, which builds flying drones and missiles, is set to raise up to $2.5 billion.
An employee demonstrates some of Anduril’s A.I. technology, in 2021.Credit...Philip Cheung for The New York Times
By
Erin Griffith and
Cade Metz
Reporting from San Francisco
Feb. 7, 2025
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Anduril, an artificial intelligence military start-up, is set to complete a new round of funding that would double the value of the company to $28 billion, according to four people familiar with the negotiations.
The funding round, which is led by Founders Fund and has not yet closed, is raising up to $2.5 billion, the people said. Founders Fund alone plans to invest $1 billion, the largest check ever written by the firm, two of the people said.
Anduril designs and builds autonomous systems and
weapons for the military and other government agencies, including flying drones, missiles, underwater vessels and surveillance equipment for monitoring both national borders and the battlefield. It is one of a new wave of companies building systems based on A.I. technologies for the government.
Founders Fund, started by the entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel, has backed Anduril since its start in 2017, and one of Anduril’s co-founders, Trae Stephens, is a partner at the firm. Mr. Thiel, who also co-founded Palantir, a military technology company, has long been a backer of Republican candidates, including President Trump in 2016 and JD Vance’s run for Senate in 2022.
Six months ago, Anduril raised $1.5 billion at a $14 billion valuation.
Founders Fund declined to comment. CNBC
first reported details of the funding talks.
The latest influx of cash comes as defense technology start-ups are ebullient about their prospects. Enthusiasm for building technology for the U.S. military has grown in recent years in Silicon Valley, a reversal from more than a decade of shying away from those contracts. As recently as 2018, thousands of employees at Google
signed a letter protesting the company’s military contracts.
That resistance has slowly shifted, as more venture capital firms pour money into the sector.
Mr. Trump is expected to turbocharge investments further. Palmer Luckey, Anduril’s founder, has supported the president since his 2016 campaign. He donated to Mr. Trump’s campaigns in the 2016, 2020 and 2024 elections, and has hosted fund-raisers.
On the night of the presidential election in November, Mr. Luckey posted a meme celebrating Mr. Trump’s victory. Elon Musk, the tech executive and a close adviser to the president, responded,
saying it was “very important to open DoD/Intel to entrepreneurial companies like yours.”
Dr. Chaffra Affouda is a Business Development Director at Anduril Imaging, where his role is to grow the core technologies that will enable the next generation of infrared focal plane arrays and systems. He graduated from SUNY-Albany, Albany, NY in 2006 with a Ph.D. in Materials Science. He then...
photonicsproject.org
EXTRACT FROM THE INTERVIEW
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- Broad experience in product development & management of day and night vision… · Experience: Anduril Industries · Education: University at Albany, SUNY · Location: United States · 444 connections on LinkedIn. View Chaffra Affouda’s profile on LinkedIn, a professional community of 1 billion members.
www.linkedin.com
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