This White House darling just became the 12th-most valuable private company. An IPO will be coming.

MW This White House darling just became the 12th-most valuable private company. An IPO will be coming.

By Hannah Pedone

Defense contractor Anduril, which is helping build President Trump's 'Golden Dome' antimissile shield, completed a funding round at a $61 billion valuation

Defense-technology company Anduril, a participant in President Trump's "Golden Dome" project, announced a new funding round.

Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf is building a defense company not based on a "vague sense of where the world might end up decades from now," but rather a "concrete judgment" about the kinds of conflicts that are most likely.

Schimpf wrote in a letter to shareholders, released publicly on Wednesday, that the hardest decisions are about "what to build over the next two to four years, when the picture is incomplete, trade-offs are unavoidable and capital has to be committed before outcomes are certain."

And now, the private defense company - entrusted by the Trump administration to help build a $1.2 trillion antimissile shield in space - has just become the 12th-most valuable private company in the world after a new funding round, according to Crunchbase data.

Investors will at some point have a chance to buy into the company, as Anduril founder Palmer Luckey has said in a CNBC interview that the company will "definitely" go public, though Anduril has not specified a timeline for an initial public offering.

On Wednesday, Anduril announced the close of its Series H funding round - a raise of $5 billion, which lifts the company's valuation to $61 billion. The round was led by Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz.

Anduril and Palantir (PLTR) are part of a group contracted to build and run the U.S.'s "Golden Dome" antimissile shield program. According to a Tuesday Congressional Budget Office release, the project would take two decades to "develop, deploy and operate." A missile-interceptor layer composed of 7,800 satellites will amount to 60% of the total project cost, according to the CBO.

Anduril has also announced recently that it's leading a team to develop solutions for the U.S. Space Force's Space-Based Interceptor program for the Golden Dome. The company has also won a 10-year contract worth up to $20 billion for work on U.S. Army projects, and recently announced an agreement to produce surface-launched cruise missiles for the U.S. Defense Department.

According to an investment description of the Golden Dome outlined in President Trump's budget request, the White House will support the development of "game-changing space-based missile-defense sensors and interceptors, kinetic and nonkinetic missile-defeat and -defense capabilities, and enabling technologies for a layered, next-generation homeland missile-defense system."

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Schimpf wrote in an announcement note that the funding "gives [Anduril] the ability to continue investing aggressively in manufacturing capacity, research and development, and the infrastructure required to build and field advanced defense systems at scale."

D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria told MarketWatch that Anduril and Palantir are especially well suited for the Golden Dome project, as it will require expertise in autonomy and AI-targeting capabilities.

"Anduril has excelled at producing hardware with these capabilities and Palantir has the software expertise. Both companies also have a reputation for rapid iteration as nontraditional defense contractors," Luria said.

Read more: Palantir pioneered the hottest job in tech. Its legions of copycats may not succeed.

Benchmark analyst Yi Fu Lee told MarketWatch that the current geopolitical environment in the Middle East has been good for the defense sector overall, noting that Palantir reported in its latest earnings release that its U.S. government revenue grew 84% year over year. He added that, with an eventual Anduril IPO in mind, the U.S. defense industry's "rising tide lifts all boats," and pointed out that Anduril is a "highly reputable" defense firm.

-Hannah Pedone

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May 13, 2026 12:49 ET (16:49 GMT)

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