Anduril is now worth $61 billion.
A firm that started in 2017 just doubled its value in one round.
The deal raised $5 billion. Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz led it.
The firm builds defense systems for the U.S. military. It's one of several Silicon Valley-backed startups taking on the old defense primes.
Before the deal, the firm was worth $30.5 billion. Now it's worth $61 billion.
CEO Brian Schimpf said the firm will pour the cash into manufacturing, research, and infrastructure to scale up.
He said the firm will "aggressively" invest in those areas as it builds defense tools for the U.S. amid rising world tensions.
Founder Palmer Luckey built the Oculus headset before he turned to defense in 2017. He told CNBC last year he would "definitely" take the firm public.
With $5 billion in fresh cash, the IPO talk is getting louder. The funding round was widely seen as a pre-IPO step.
Schimpf also pointed to a broader shift. "When we founded Anduril in 2017, defense was not a category that attracted significant venture investment," he said. "That has changed meaningfully over the last several years."
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The U.S. is in a buying mood. Anduril is in the room.
This year, the firm joined the group building space interceptors for Trump's $185 billion shield plan, known as the "Golden Dome."
It also won a 10-year U.S. Army enterprise contract with a $20 billion ceiling. It then acquired a space missile and satellite tracking company.
On Wednesday, the Pentagon said it would buy more than 10,000 low-cost hypersonic missiles from Anduril, CoAspire, Leidos, and Zone 5.
That deal runs for three years. It's a clear sign the U.S. wants to lean on new vendors and not just the legacy primes.
The bigger picture: Anduril is set up to win big from the U.S. push to rebuild its military and supply chain.
Rising tensions have only sped the push. The Pentagon wants tools that can scale up fast when needed.
For years, defense work has gone to three old primes: Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and RTX. They won most of the big U.S. deals.
Then Silicon Valley showed up with VC money and a new approach.
Fresh cash has poured into Shield AI, ship-maker Saronic, and a wave of space firms.
The trade now draws the kind of cash that used to flow only to apps and chips. That shift is part of why Wall Street watches each new round.
The U.S. push to rebuild the military looks set to run for years. Anduril is in line to be one of the big winners.
The IPO is the next thing to watch.
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