Mach Industries

Ethan Thornton started Mach Industries in January 2023 after a single semester at MIT, funded first by a Thiel Fellowship and then by Sequoia, which had never written a defense technology check before. The opening idea was Prometheus, a forward deployable hydrogen generator running on activated aluminum powder. A test accident in early 2023 and the cost of producing the aluminum fuel ended it. Thornton has since called that early bet a bad one, and the hydrogen work was folded into propulsion research and then into airframes. What followed was steep. A 79 million dollar Series A in October 2023 was followed by 100 million in June 2025, a 300 million dollar Series C in June 2026 at a 1.8 billion valuation, and a 600 million extension of that round in September 2026 that marked the company at 3.7 billion. Ribbit Capital, Infinite Capital, Bedrock Capital and Sequoia all took part. Headquarters and the first factory sit in a 115,000 square foot building in Huntington Beach, California.

Strike systems carry the catalog. Viper is a turbojet powered vertical takeoff one way attack vehicle built under an Army Applications Laboratory contract awarded in 2024, carrying a warhead above 10 kilograms to roughly 290 kilometers at a target unit price under 100,000 dollars. It flew its first vertical takeoff and wingborne test in January 2025, months after design work began, and it is meant for formations from company through brigade operating where satellite navigation does not work. Pike is the larger sibling, a longer range modular munition aimed at volume production. Glide reaches the target another way, released at high altitude from a balloon or an aircraft and falling unpowered through the last leg of its flight, which keeps its radar signature small.

Two more lines cover the airspace above and around the fight. Stratos is a high altitude pseudo satellite, a balloon borne platform meant to hold sensors and communications relays over a theater for long stretches. Dart, introduced in January 2026, pairs ground radar with solid rocket interceptors to bring down Group 1 through 3 drones and swarms at a cost per shot below the cost of the threat. Atlas took the company to sea. The Defense Innovation Unit selected it in mid 2026 under the Runway Independent Maritime Expeditionary Strike program, and Mach describes a hybrid electric aircraft carrying a 1,000 pound payload out to 1,400 nautical miles with no runway involved.

Underneath all of it sits the manufacturing argument. Forge is the production network, with the Huntington Beach plant tooled for composite airframes and modular payloads at a target of up to 1,000 Viper class units a month, and it has taken outside work, including co-production of Heven Drones airframes. Mach Propulsion builds micro turbine engines in house on a line planned for 12,000 units a year, after the company bought engines from JetCat during early Viper testing. Energetics arrived by acquisition. Mach paid 50 million dollars for Exquadrum in 2026, adding solid rocket motors, pyrotechnics, explosives testing and propulsion test stands to the stack. A design partnership with Divergent Technologies produced Venom, an airframe taken from concept to flying hardware in 71 days.