(Refiling to fix surname in last paragraph to “Thornton” instead of “Thorn”)
By Krystal Hu
(Reuters) – Defense startup Mach Industries has raised $5.7 million in a seed round led by Sequoia Capital, the first-ever defense tech investment in the venture capital giant’s history, the two companies said.
Sequoia’s funding of a technology that aims to use hydrogen creation on the battlefield signals the latest interest from Silicon Valley investors in backing technologies that bolster U.S. national security and working with the Department of Defense.
“Defense technology is central to our safety. However, aging defense systems and ailing supply chains mean the U.S. has a big opportunity to innovate in service of national security,” Shaun Maguire, partner at Sequoia, who led the deal, told Reuters via email.
“There is a major modernization effort underway to advance the U.S. defense technology and build a new generation of military systems.”
Founded by MIT dropout and Thiel Fellow Ethan Thornton in 2022, Mach Industries focuses on building a hardware solution using field-sourced hydrogen creation and combustion techniques. It is working to develop a weapon system that uses the chemical reaction of oxygen and hydrogen to create a powerful explosion that could fuel unmanned aerial vehicles and aerial protection devices.
Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Mach said the funding will be used for product development, hiring talent, and building out facilities.
“We’ve built out facilities in Boston and Austin and are now moving towards production. We are looking to have deployed systems within the next year,” Thornton said in a phone interview with Reuters, adding that the company already works with the Pentagon on research.
(This story has been refiled to fix the surname to ‘Thornton’ instead of ‘Thorn’ in paragraph 7)
(Reporting by Krystal Hu in San Francisco; Editing by Leslie Adler)
