Andundil de Palmer Luckey leads investments in venture capital in the second quarter for the great
Investments in venture capital in the Grand Los Angeles region have more than doubled at $ 5.8 billion in the second quarter, compared to a year ago, while investors have paid money into defense technology and aerospace companies in the region in a context of climbing geopolitical tensions.
The Defense Technology Company based in Costa Mesa, Anduril, has obtained the most venture capital in the region in the last quarter, raising a financing cycle of 2.5 billion dollars, according to the research firm CB Insights.
The company, co -founded by the entrepreneur Palmer Luckey, said that it would use money to invest in the reduction of its production, hiring, the magnitude of large swings on products and capacities and other efforts such as its strategy of mergers and acquisitions.
Andundil, which manufactures autonomous weapons systems, recently received a contract of $ 99.6 million to build a prototype command and control of the next generation for the American army which, according to him, will help modernize communications on the battlefield. Andundil employs more than 6,000 people and has an evaluation of $ 30.5 billion.
The venture capital company Founders Fund led the recent round with an investment of $ 1 billion, marking the largest check of the company to date, said the partner of the founders and executive president of Andundil, Trae Stephens, in a Bloomberg television interview in June.
The recent company collection of funds from the company is an example of interest in solid investors for defense technology and aerospace, which, according to venture capital companies, is ripe for disturbances, startups taking stock market shares such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
Globally, venture capital investments in defense technology are increasing. Already, the financing of this category exceeded last year, according to CB Insights. For the first half of 2025, investors allocated $ 11.1 billion in venture capital to defense technological companies, compared to $ 8.2 billion in 2024, CB Insights said.
Investors are impatient to jump in a growing field that has a lot of government support, while the United States entered a period when defense and the geopolitical arena are at the forefront, analysts said. The world is shaken by multiple international conflicts, notably the Russia’s current war against Ukraine and the Battle of Israel against Hamas in Gaza.
“We are entering an administration, a regulatory period and a broader geopolitical arena where the defense is at the forefront of everyone,” said Jason Saltzman, information manager at CB Insights. “We are starting to see a lot of government support in particular, with an increasing number of investors jumping on the Defense Technology Train.”
South of California, Long an Aerospace and Defense Tech Hub, benefits from the interests of investors, companies in the region representing nine of the 30 best private companies worldwide in defense technology that have received the most in venture capital, according to CB Insights.
Local companies said they were attracted to southern California because of its high talent swimming pool, with neighboring universities like Caltech and USC Viterbi School of Engineering.
To return to the Second World War and the period of the Cold War, key defense entrepreneurs like Northrop Grumman and Hughes were built in the South Bay region, making the region a crucial place for the defense and aerospace industries, said Professor Dan Wadhwani, director of the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies School of Business. While startups create new technologies, they will have to integrate them into other existing systems, he added.
“The proximity of the main players in the defense industry makes the privileged place to capitalize on increasing trends towards defense spending,” he said.
According to CB Insights. Anduril paved the way, followed by Impulse Space, based in Redondo Beach, which raised $ 300 million, Chaos Industries, based in Hawthorne, which had a round of funding of $ 275 million and a manufacturer of spaceships based in Los Angeles Apex, which raised 200 million dollars in the second quarter, said CB Insights.
Chaos Industries manufactures radars that offer a warning and follow -up against unmanned air systems, missiles and planes. The company, which has more than 100 employees, has collected a total of $ 490 million since its creation in 2022. Funding will have hired and increasing the company’s manufacturing capacity, said the strategy director.
Hurd said he remembers when he worked in an investment bank in 2021 and most investors did not want to finance businesses where the government was their customer because there was a fear or a lack of understanding of the functioning of this process. Now it has changed and evolved, with a wave of defense technologies and aerospace companies, including Chaos Industries.
“Now, adversaries have become more sophisticated, and we have to match this,” said Hurd.
Impulse Space, which makes space vehicles, said that there was an increase in customer demand. The company said that it had more than 30 government and commercial contracts worth almost $ 200 million and that additional venture capital funding will be hiring, production production and accelerating its research and development.
“We have proven that we can build quickly and successfully steal,” said CEO and founder Tom Mueller in a press release. “Now the market asks more.”
