Ben Lamm (Colossal Biosciences) and Palmer Luckey (Anduril) have launched Warhound, a company aiming to genetically engineer dogs for bomb detection, search operations, and other military and law enforcement tasks. The startup emerged from stealth with $200 million in funding from In-Q-Tel, Sequoia, and 8VC, valuing it at $1.2 billion, and plans to biobank cell lines from top-performing breeds like Belgian Malinois and German Shepherds for gene editing.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-22
Bob McGrew, OpenAI's former research chief and a longtime Palantir engineering lead, has raised $230 million for his manufacturing startup Arda at a $1.5 billion valuation. The round was led by Altimeter Capital, Accel and Khosla Ventures, and Arda's AI software is already deployed with defense tech company Anduril. McGrew describes the product as an AI assistant for manufacturing engineers, similar to coding tools like Claude or Cursor but aimed at speeding up assembly-line changes.
cnbc.com
· 2026-10-20
The US Air Force tested a setup where an F-22 Raptor pilot sent high-level tactical commands to Anduril's YFQ-44A Fury drone via a tactical data link while both aircraft flew out of Edwards Air Force Base. The drone's onboard autonomy software translated those directives into flight maneuvers and simulated combat tasks, while the human pilot retained decision-making control rather than flying the drone directly.
techspot.com
· 2026-10-19
The U.S. Air Force conducted a flight test in which an F-22 Raptor pilot gave tactical commands to an Anduril YFQ-44A Fury drone, which translated them into autonomous flight maneuvers during simulated combat, according to The Defense Watch. The test is part of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program aimed at pairing crewed fighters with autonomous drone wingmen.
tomshardware.com
· 2026-10-18
Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf told CNBC the company grew strongly under the Biden administration and said its contract wins are based on merit, not political ties. The comments follow scrutiny of co-founder Palmer Luckey's appointment to the Pentagon's Project Meridian group days before Anduril secured a shipyard contract worth up to $2.9 billion, on top of a $20 billion DOD deal won in March.
cnbc.com
· 2026-10-15
Anduril is letting employees sell shares through a tender offer priced at $94.80 each, implying a roughly $90 billion valuation, CNBC confirmed after an initial Bloomberg report. The offer opened October 13, closes November 9, is capped at $1.3 billion, and is open to employees in 16 countries.
cnbc.com
· 2026-10-14
Anduril Industries has been awarded a contract valued at up to $2.9 billion to support submarine manufacturing for the U.S. Navy. The company plans to develop a new 2 million-square-foot shipyard at Sparrows Point, Maryland, starting operations in 2030, which will produce components for Virginia-class submarines. This announcement follows Palmer Luckey's recent appointment to a Pentagon weapons development task force, highlighting the company's growing role in national defense projects.
cnbc.com
· 2026-10-06
Defense technology companies such as Palantir, Anduril, and SpaceX are increasingly developing and retaining ownership of software and hardware built for the U.S. military, rather than ceding control to the government. This shift raises questions about how much leverage private firms hold over systems the Pentagon depends on.
gizmodo.com
· 2026-10-05
The Department of Defense has launched Project Meridian, an initiative described by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as a study of future battlefields meant to identify weapons and technologies the military will need and propose ways to develop and field them. The effort will be led by Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey and Newt Gingrich, none of whom have served in the US military.
engadget.com
· 2026-09-30
An investigation involving over 45 interviews with officials, Border Patrol agents, medical examiners and tech workers found that Anduril's AI-powered surveillance towers along the US-Mexico border are both failing to detect migrants and, when detections do occur, agents are failing to respond in time. Anduril says CBP operates the towers post-delivery and that surveillance range depends on terrain and privacy-related boundaries CBP itself sets.
technologyreview.com
· 2026-09-21
An investigation by MIT Technology Review and Times of San Diego found that people have died undetected near AI-enabled surveillance towers along the US-Mexico border, including sites using technology from defense contractor Anduril. The reporters documented broken equipment, detection algorithms that missed people, and agents who failed to act on alerts, even as CBP plans to spend $1 billion to triple the system's size by 2034.
technologyreview.com
· 2026-09-21
Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps recovered a 19-foot Dive-LD autonomous underwater vehicle made by Anduril after it malfunctioned during a surveillance mission near the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. Navy has characterized the lost drone as an older, defective, unclassified unit carrying no sensitive sonar or radar equipment, while Iranian embassies have publicly mocked the loss online.
tomshardware.com
· 2026-09-12
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