The 2026 World Cup kicks off next week across 16 cities in the US, Mexico, and Canada. It is the largest in history: 48 teams, 104 matches, 39 days. It is also the most technologically surveilled sporting event ever staged, with robot dogs, net-shooting hunter drones, and thousands of AI-powered cameras deployed across venues and fan zones.

“It’s 78 Super Bowls over 39 days,” said Andrew Giuliani, executive director of Trump’s World Cup task force. FEMA has distributed $625 million to the 11 US host cities, with an additional $250 million earmarked for tracking and neutralising suspect drones.

Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot dogs are patrolling AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, as part of a “Security Spot” initiative by owner Hyundai. The company says it is deploying “its largest and most advanced mobility fleet to date,” making it the first official partner to provide robotics for the tournament. The robots will inspect suspicious packages and hazardous materials.

Sightings of the quadrupeds sparked immediate surveillance fears. Rumours spread on social media that the dogs were scanning faces. Boston Dynamics told Chron that the robots “do not have facial recognition capabilities.” But the optics of robotic security patrols at a sporting event drew comparisons to the Black Mirror episode “Metalhead.”

Mexico is deploying four robot dogs called K9-X across its three World Cup venues. Officials told Wired the robots will intervene in fights or drunken incidents to protect officers. Technical details and the manufacturer were not disclosed.

Drones are the top concern. “If there is one threat that keeps me up at night, it is from drones,” said New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. Drones are banned over stadiums and fan zones. Counter-drone technology has become one of the fastest-growing segments in defence tech, and the FBI says it has a “full suite of options” to thwart incursions.

One of those options comes from Fortem, which claims to have signed a multimillion-dollar DHS contract for quadcopters that shoot nets at encroaching drones to trap them in midair. DHS declined to discuss the contract.

AI-generated misinformation is another concern. Officials warned that state actors could use deepfake videos to sow panic. The FBI will activate joint operations centres in each host city on match days. “If there’s a video that shows an explosion going off at a site, and it’s AI generated, we have people on the ground who can validate whether or not that’s true,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Amit Kachhia-Patel.

In Dallas, a $120 million tech upgrade gives police body cameras with real-time translation, helping officers communicate with international visitors. Several drone detection startups are also joining federal efforts to secure the skies.

The security apparatus comes against a tense backdrop. The US-Israel war with Iran has changed the threat picture since planning began. Human rights groups have raised concerns about ICE presence at venues. And the Secret Service, in charge of protecting world leaders who attend, is understaffed by about 860 agents, according to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

“We’re as prepared as we can be,” Giuliani said. The unspoken bet is that the tech will make up the difference.

Defense tech is red hot right now. Anduril and Mach Industries just doubled and quadrupled their valuations, respectively, and the U.S. government is proposing a 40% increase in defense budget. A wave of new startups is chasing those government contracts, but according to Ross Fubini, the venture investor who wrote Anduril’s first check, most of them will get lost in the Valley of Death between prototype contract and real production deal.  

Watch as, on this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan asks Fubini — the founder and managing partner of XYZ Venture Capital, built on the Palantir alumni network and now approaching $2B AUM — what separates the survivors from the rest. 

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 

TL;DR

Germany-based Focused Energy raised an oversubscribed $240M Series A led by utility RWE to commercialise laser-powered inertial confinement fusion based on the NIF’s historic net energy gain experiment. The company plans a demonstration reactor at a decommissioned German fission plant.

Focused Energy, a Germany-based fusion startup, has raised an oversubscribed $240 million Series A round to develop a commercial reactor based on the same approach that produced the world’s first controlled fusion reaction with net energy gain. The round, led by German utility RWE, brings the company’s total private capital to $300 million. Focused Energy has also received $200 million in grants, making it one of the most heavily funded fusion startups in the world at approximately $500 million in total funding.

The round also included participation from SPRIND, the German Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation, Prime Movers Lab, and the European Innovation Council Fund. Focused Energy plans to build its first demonstration system, called Lighthouse, at the site of a decommissioned nuclear fission power plant in Germany operated by RWE, a practical decision that leverages existing grid connections, cooling infrastructure, and regulatory frameworks designed for nuclear facilities.

From NIF experiment to commercial reactor

Focused Energy’s approach is inertial confinement fusion, in which lasers compress a fuel target to create conditions extreme enough for atoms to fuse and release energy. The technique was validated in December 2022 at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, a breakthrough that arrived as global energy demand from AI data centres was beginning to surge. That experiment remains the first and only controlled fusion reaction to release more energy than was required to ignite it.

The NIF connection is not just conceptual. Debbie Callahan, who helped design the fuel target used in the historic NIF experiment, joined Focused Energy in December as chief strategy officer. Her task is to simplify the target for commercial production. The NIF’s fuel target is complex and difficult to manufacture, and the facility fires approximately 400 shots per year. A commercial reactor will need to fire 10 shots per second, or roughly 864,000 per day.

One critical simplification is eliminating the hohlraum, a precision-manufactured gold cylinder that the NIF uses to convert laser energy into X-rays, which then compress the fuel pellet. Focused Energy’s “direct drive” system skips this intermediate step, with lasers compressing the fuel pellet directly. This should improve the reactor’s energy efficiency and simplify the fuel target manufacturing process, both of which are essential for a system that needs to operate continuously at industrial scale.

A crowded field with real money

Focused Energy is entering an increasingly competitive fusion landscape. European deep tech startups are attracting significant government and private investment, and fusion is among the most capital-intensive categories. Inertia Enterprises raised a $450 million Series A in February for its own inertial confinement reactor, making it a direct competitor. Thea Energy raised $100 million last week for a pixel-inspired fusion approach. Type One Energy, backed by Bill Gates, raised nearly $90 million toward a $250 million Series B in January. Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which is in Gigascale Capital’s portfolio, raised $863 million for its magnetic confinement approach.

The investment wave reflects a convergence of factors: the NIF’s proof that net energy gain is physically possible, AI-driven electricity demand that is straining existing grids, and government programmes in the US, EU, and UK that are providing grants and regulatory frameworks for fusion development. Energy storage and generation technologies that can provide baseload power without carbon emissions are attracting capital that would have been unimaginable five years ago.

The engineering gap

The distance between the NIF experiment and a commercial power plant is enormous. The NIF achieved net energy gain measured against the energy delivered to the fuel, not against the total energy consumed by the laser system, which is orders of magnitude larger. A commercial reactor must achieve gain measured against total system input, which requires both more efficient lasers and higher-yield fuel targets.

Focused Energy’s direct-drive approach addresses part of this gap by removing the hohlraum’s energy losses, but the company still needs to demonstrate that its laser system can achieve the precision, repetition rate, and efficiency required for continuous operation. The urgency of the energy problem is real, with AI infrastructure alone expected to consume 9% of US electricity by 2030, but urgency does not change the physics.

RWE’s involvement as lead investor is the most commercially meaningful signal in the round. A major European utility putting capital into a fusion startup and offering a decommissioned plant site for the demonstration system suggests that at least one entity with deep experience operating power plants believes Focused Energy’s approach has a credible path to grid-connected electricity. Whether Lighthouse can bridge the gap between laboratory physics and commercial power generation is the $500 million question.

TL;DR

Polish PM Donald Tusk announced a “sovereignty test” for significant government technology purchases and annual IT independence reports, warning that Poland’s dependency on foreign digital infrastructure demands urgent policy action.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has announced that Poland will introduce a “sovereignty test” for significant government purchases of technology solutions, warning that the country’s dependency on foreign digital infrastructure has reached a scale that demands a policy response. Speaking at the European Financial Congress in Sopot on Tuesday, Tusk said Poland will also publish annual reports documenting its progress toward IT independence, creating a public accountability mechanism for a priority he described as existential.

“At this point, the scale of this dependency, and I’m referring here to the relationship between the state and the digital sphere, has reached such proportions that it must prompt serious economic, institutional, and organisational decisions,” Tusk said. The statement places Poland among a growing number of EU member states that are translating tech sovereignty rhetoric into concrete procurement policy.

What the sovereignty test means

The details of the test have not been fully disclosed, but the framing suggests Poland will evaluate whether major government technology contracts create strategic dependencies on foreign providers, particularly in AI infrastructure, cloud computing, and telecommunications. Europe’s approach to technology governance has historically focused on regulation rather than procurement, but the AI era is forcing governments to consider who owns the infrastructure their citizens and institutions rely on, not just how it is regulated.

Poland has already taken steps in this direction. Earlier this year, the government banned Chinese-made cars from entering military facilities, citing infrastructure security concerns. The country is also increasing the share of domestic companies in public procurements, a policy that parallels similar moves across the EU as member states grapple with dependency on American cloud providers and Chinese hardware.

The European context

Tusk’s announcement arrives as EU nations struggle to balance trade relationships with technology security. Germany and Spain are leading opposition to European Commission plans to ban Chinese technology suppliers from telecom networks as part of new cybersecurity rules. The intersection of trade policy and technology security is creating fractures within the EU, with larger economies that have deep commercial ties to China resisting restrictions that smaller or more security-focused members support.

The EU’s own AI infrastructure plans are stumbling, with the €20 billion gigafactory programme facing delays and funding gaps. That vacuum makes national-level action like Poland’s sovereignty test more likely: if the EU cannot deliver a coordinated infrastructure strategy, individual member states will build their own frameworks for managing technology dependency.

The AI dimension adds urgency that previous technology sovereignty debates lacked. Europe’s inability to access Anthropic’s Mythos cybersecurity model until this week demonstrated that regulatory power alone does not guarantee access to the most consequential AI capabilities. A government that depends on foreign AI systems for critical functions, from defence analysis to healthcare delivery, faces risks that procurement rules alone may not address. European efforts to build sovereign AI alternatives, such as BNP Paribas and Mistral’s cyber-focused model, are gaining political support precisely because of these dependency concerns.

Poland holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU in the first half of 2025 and has used the position to push digital sovereignty higher on the bloc’s agenda. Tusk’s Sopot speech signals that Poland intends to lead by example, implementing domestic procurement reforms while advocating for EU-wide standards. Whether other member states follow will depend on whether they view technology sovereignty as a security imperative or a barrier to accessing the best available tools, a tension the EU has not resolved.

When I reach out to the self-proclaimed “open source baddie” CC for an interview, I’m pretty sure she’s emailing me back from a pink mermaid purse.

“I’m just having so much fun,” she tells me about her seashell cyberdeck. “It’s a Tamagotchi. It’s also an e-reader. It’s networked to my vault and my servers, so it has access to all of my server data, which has all my PDFs, and books, and notes, and everything… It’s also connected to my local AI setup at home.”

CC has no background in software engineering or computer science, but she’s gotten good enough at building unconventional cyberdecks — small DIY computers — that she documents the process on her blog Bimbo Tech so that other women can follow her lead, even if they don’t yet know what RAM is.

The idea of the cyberdeck originated in William Gibson’s 1984 sci-fi novel “Neuromancer,” and when credit card-sized computers like the Raspberry Pi came on the market in the 2010s, hardware enthusiasts began building and sharing their own cyberdecks in niche online communities. But over the last few months, these communities have exploded in popularity thanks to women on social media who are teaching each other to build artistic, hyper-feminine computers by documenting their building processes.

“I have a running joke that there’s this underlying misogyny in tech — because whenever they release a pro model, or an elite model… I’m always like, let me guess, it’s black or silver,” CC said. “It’s never going to come in pink.” 

The process of customizing and designing a cyberdeck has become an art form in itself. On Instagram and TikTok, you can find a cyberdeck made of wood and moss that runs Game Boy Color games; a desert-inspired MP3 player built inside a 3D-printed fossil; a Barbie dollhouse that opens up to reveal a functional mini-computer; or a duck figurine that can be used to record voice notes.

“I don’t want Meta AI glasses. I want to pirate books in a tiny embellished shell,” said the creator Sarahbelle Kim on TikTok. “No one can surveil you there. You can get some basic parts at the thrift store or eBay and just customize it.”

There’s obviously an aesthetic motivation to the rise of girly cyberdecks — why not use a Hello Kitty purse to check your email? It’s fun for the sake of fun. But the women building these over-the-top, bedazzled cyberdecks aren’t in it for the glitter alone. This trend is reaching its peak at a time when people feel powerless against the omnipresent homogeneity of big tech.

“I think that’s such a refreshing thing for people who were sold these devices that are like Apple’s… If you try to jailbreak it, if you try to do anything to this phone that you paid $1,000 for, that you own, it’s out of warranty,” CC said. “So I just love seeing people taking the power back into their hands, taking the control back into their hands, which obviously always means creativity when people are given the means to go outside of the black box.”

Maro Vardanyan doesn’t work with hardware as a blockchain developer, but she’s always enjoyed collecting and tinkering with old computer parts.

“A few months ago, I just started as a hobby making art and jewelry pieces and purses with recycled or upcycled old computers I had,” she said. “When I saw everyone doing cyberdecks, I was like, wait, why am I just doing recycled and upcycled ones when I can actually preserve the pieces on something that’s wearable, that’s movable?” 

Vardanyan has taken a different approach to building cyberdecks, opting instead to emphasize the historic relationship between fiber art and technology. Vardanyan refers to her work as “crocheting with computers” or “macrame motherboards,” deliberately nodding to the role of weaving — a practice often viewed as domestic, women’s labor — in the history of early computing.

Before silicon processors, some early computers ran on magnetic-core memory, made up of copper wiring that was precisely threaded to encode the 1s and 0s of binary code. In order for NASA to build the Apollo Guidance Computer, for example, expert women textile workers were tasked with meticulously weaving wires in painstakingly complex patterns, which powered the spacecraft that landed the first man on the moon.

“The original processor was handwoven by seamstresses, not by engineers or anybody else,” she said. “I feel like the hand weaving, and even the fashion-meets-technology… It’s so full circle.”

Vardanyan started weaving pink Raspberry Pis to make purses and corsets, then posted photos of her works-in-progress on X.

“Of course, when the macrame went viral, all of the men are like, ‘This is such a waste of the Raspberry Pi,’ … or, ‘what about the rain?’” she said. “And then I have to be like, ‘Actually, it’s preserved in an acrylic shell.’ And then they’re like, ‘This is so performative, and the GPIO is gonna lose energy!’ And I’m like, ‘Actually, I’m using a conductive thread, so it actually will move and be fully functioning.’”

@gazi.ai

grass cyberdeck (allat to play pokemon yellow ). thoughts ↓ cyberdecks were never about making the “best” computer. they came out of Neuromancer (yes, i wrote my senior essay on it) as messy, personal machines. now it’s a whole maker subculture, but the core’s the same: control + identity + a quiet resistance to how polished tech has become. this one’s a grass cyberdeck, wood + moss + exposed parts. something that feels a little alive, a little off. built on a Raspberry Pi, nothing fancy. honestly a simple build, just wanted to show how easy it is to make something like this in your bedroom (i post my pc a lot, but this is just as cool). it’s not trying to compete with a GeForce RTX 4090 or be practical. it’s more about rejecting the “black box” (our everyday sealed, untouchable devices) and leaning into radical ownership, something you can open, understand, and actually call yours. more optimization soon #cyberdeck #pokemonyellow #reelsinstagram #hardware

♬ original sound – Gazi Jarin

CC has also encountered condescending men on the internet who balk at the idea that someone would use a Raspberry Pi on something as frivolous as a seashell purse computer during a RAM shortage.

“This guy on Reddit was like, ‘You built your first computer a month ago, calm the f— down.’ Mind you, I’ve been building PCs for years,” CC said. “So, long story short, he ends up apologizing and buying me the circuit board for my next cyberdeck.”

From CC’s mermaid purse computer to Vardanyan’s Raspberry Pi corset, these cyberdecks are a direct rejection of Silicon Valley culture, and not just in their egregious embrace of the color pink. They’re impractical and inefficient on purpose, which seems sacrilegious in a culture so obsessed with optimization that unregulated Chinese peptide injections are trendy. It’s a radical act to opt for hacky, DIY tech experiences in order to forge a closer relationship with the devices that feel so abstract despite their ubiquity.

“Ten years ago, I would walk into a conference, there would be three girls, and people would literally just be like, ‘Were you hired for the marketing team?’” Vardanyan said. “I can’t even tell you how amazing it is seeing so many girls all over my social media and Instagram being into hardware, being into software, and then educating [each other], and that’s definitely the energy that we’re missing on every level in society.”

Focused Energy recently raised an oversubscribed $240 million Series A round, one of the largest early-stage rounds for a fusion power startup. 

The new round, announced last week, brings the company’s total private capital raised to $300 million, the company told TechCrunch. The startup has also received $200 million in grants, collectively making it one of the most heavily funded fusion startups.

Germany-based Focused Energy is developing a reactor that will use lasers to compress fusion fuel, an approach known as inertial confinement. The lasers fire on a fuel target, which compresses under the onslaught to create conditions ripe for fusion. When atoms inside the fuel finally fuse, they release significant amounts of energy.

The company is basing its design on the experiment at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. That experiment is so far the first and only one to create a controlled nuclear fusion reaction that released more energy than it took to ignite it. The NIF connection is more than conceptual — Debbie Callahan, who helped design the fuel target at the NIF, joined Focused Energy in December as its chief strategy officer. 

At Focused Energy, Callahan is working to simplify the fuel target. The NIF’s target is complex and hard to manufacture, and the facility only fires about 400 shots per year. Focused Energy, on the other hand, will need to do 10 shots per second, or about 864,000 shots per day. 

One simplification involves doing away with the hohlraum, a precision-manufactured gold cylinder that converts laser energy into X-rays. The X-rays do the work of compressing the fuel pellet at the NIF. Focused Energy’s laser system is what industry insiders call “direct drive” — that is, the lasers directly compress the fuel pellet. That should help boost the reactor’s efficiency, making it easier to produce power. 

Focused Energy is hoping to build its first demonstration system, Lighthouse, at the site of a decommissioned nuclear fission power plant in Germany that was operated by the utility RWE. 

RWE was the main investor in the Series A, Focused Energy told TechCrunch. The round also included participation from the German Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation (SPRIND), Prime Movers Lab, and the European Innovation Council Fund.

As large as this Series A is, the fusion industry has been an investor favorite this year. Last week, Thea Energy raised $100 million to develop its pixel-inspired fusion reactor. In February, Inertia Enterprises raised a $450 million Series A to develop its own reactor, which could be a close competitor to Focused Energy’s. And in January, Type One Energy told TechCrunch that it had raised almost $90 million toward a $250 million Series B.

When I reach out to the self-proclaimed “open source baddie” CC for an interview, I’m pretty sure she’s emailing me back from a pink mermaid purse.

“I’m just having so much fun,” she tells me about her seashell cyberdeck. “It’s a Tamagotchi. It’s also an e-reader. It’s networked to my vault and my servers, so it has access to all of my server data, which has all my PDFs, and books, and notes, and everything… It’s also connected to my local AI setup at home.”

CC has no background in software engineering or computer science, but she’s gotten good enough at building unconventional cyberdecks – small DIY computers – that she documents the process on her blog Bimbo Tech so that other women can follow her lead, even if they don’t yet know what RAM is.

The idea of the cyberdeck originated in William Gibson’s 1984 sci-fi novel “Neuromancer,” and when credit card-sized computers like the Raspberry Pi came on the market in the 2010s, hardware enthusiasts began building and sharing their own cyberdecks in niche online communities. But over the last few months, these communities have exploded in popularity thanks to women on social media who are teaching each other to build artistic, hyper-feminine computers by documenting their building processes.

“I have a running joke that there’s this underlying misogyny in tech – because whenever they release a pro model, or an elite model… I’m always like, let me guess, it’s black or silver,” CC said. “It’s never going to come in pink.” 

The process of customizing and designing a cyberdeck has become an art form in itself. On Instagram and TikTok, you can find a cyberdeck made of wood and moss that runs Game Boy Color games; a desert-inspired MP3 player built inside of a 3D-printed fossil; a Barbie dollhouse that opens up to reveal a functional mini-computer; or a duck figurine that can be used to record voice notes.

“I don’t want Meta AI glasses. I want to pirate books in a tiny embellished shell,” said the creator Sarahbelle Kim on TikTok. “No one can surveil you there. You can get some basic parts at the thrift or eBay and just customize it.”

There’s obviously an aesthetic motivation to the rise of girly cyberdecks — why not use a Hello Kitty purse to check your email? It’s fun for the sake of fun. But the women building these over-the-top, bedazzled cyberdecks aren’t in it for the glitter alone. This trend is reaching its peak at a time when people feel powerless against the omnipresent homogeneity of big tech.

“I think that’s such a refreshing thing for people who were sold these devices that are like Apple’s… If you try to jailbreak it, if you try to do anything to this phone that you paid $1,000 for, that you own, it’s out of warranty,” CC said. “So I just love seeing people taking the power back into their hands, taking the control back into their hands, which obviously always means creativity when people are given the means to go outside of the black box.”

Maro Vandanyan doesn’t work with hardware as a blockchain developer, but she’s always enjoyed collecting and tinkering with old computer parts.

“A few months ago, I just started as a hobby making art and jewelry pieces and purses with recycled or upcycled old computers I had,” she said. “When I saw everyone doing cyberdecks, I was like, wait, why am I just doing recycled and upcycled ones when I can actually preserve the pieces on something that’s wearable, that’s movable?” 

Vandanyan has taken a different approach to building cyberdecks, opting instead to emphasize the historic relationship between fiber art and technology. Vandanyan refers to her work as “crocheting with computers” or “macrame motherboards,” deliberately nodding to the role of weaving — a practice often viewed as domestic, women’s labor — in the history of early computing.

Before silicon processors, some early computers ran on magnetic-core memory, made up of copper wiring that was precisely threaded to encode the 1s and 0s of binary code. In order for NASA to build the Apollo Guidance Computer, for example, expert women textile workers were tasked with meticulously weaving wires in painstakingly complex patterns, which powered the spacecraft that landed the first man on the moon.

“The original processor was handwoven by seamstresses, not by engineers or anybody else,” she said. “I feel like the hand weaving, and even the fashion-meets-technology… It’s so full circle.”

Vandanyan started weaving pink Raspberry Pis to make purses and corsets, then posted photos of her works-in-progress on X.

“Of course, when the macrame went viral, all of the men are like, ‘This is such a waste of the Raspberry Pi,’ … or, ‘what about the rain?’” she said. “And then I have to be like, ‘Actually, it’s preserved in an acrylic shell.’ And then they’re like, ‘This is so performative, and the GPIO is gonna lose energy!’ And I’m like, ‘Actually, I’m using a conductive thread, so it actually will move and be fully functioning.’”

@gazi.ai

grass cyberdeck (allat to play pokemon yellow ). thoughts ↓ cyberdecks were never about making the “best” computer. they came out of Neuromancer (yes, i wrote my senior essay on it) as messy, personal machines. now it’s a whole maker subculture, but the core’s the same: control + identity + a quiet resistance to how polished tech has become. this one’s a grass cyberdeck, wood + moss + exposed parts. something that feels a little alive, a little off. built on a Raspberry Pi, nothing fancy. honestly a simple build, just wanted to show how easy it is to make something like this in your bedroom (i post my pc a lot, but this is just as cool). it’s not trying to compete with a GeForce RTX 4090 or be practical. it’s more about rejecting the “black box” (our everyday sealed, untouchable devices) and leaning into radical ownership, something you can open, understand, and actually call yours. more optimization soon #cyberdeck #pokemonyellow #reelsinstagram #hardware

♬ original sound – Gazi Jarin

CC has also encountered condescending men on the internet who balk at the idea that someone would use a Raspberry Pi on something as frivolous as a seashell purse computer during a RAM shortage.

“This guy on Reddit was like, ‘You built your first computer a month ago, calm the f— down.’ Mind you, I’ve been building PCs for years,” CC said. “So, long story short, he ends up apologizing and buying me the circuit board for my next cyberdeck.”

From CC’s mermaid purse computer to Vandanyan’s Raspberry Pi corset, these cyberdecks are a direct rejection of Silicon Valley culture, and not just in their egregious embrace of the color pink. They’re impractical and inefficient on purpose, which seems sacrilegious in a culture so obsessed with optimization that unregulated Chinese peptide injections are trendy. It’s a radical act to opt for hacky, DIY tech experiences in order to forge a closer relationship with the devices that feel so abstract despite their ubiquity.

“Ten years ago, I would walk into a conference, there would be three girls, and people would literally just be like, ‘Were you hired for the marketing team?’” Vandanyan said. “I can’t even tell you how amazing it is seeing so many girls all over my social media and Instagram being into hardware, being into software, and then educating [each other], and that’s definitely the energy that we’re missing on every level in society.”

Mach Industries, the three-year-old defense tech startup run by 22-year-old founder and CEO Ethan Thornton, has raised a $300 million Series C at a $1.8 billion valuation, the company announced on Monday.

The raise nearly quadruples the valuation of the company in a year. In June 2025, Mach raised $100 million at a $470 million valuation. Other investors include Bedrock Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Khosla Ventures.

The round was led by deep tech fund Infinite Capital and Ribbit Capital, known for fintech and lately in hot deals everywhere — from AI coding startups like Cognition to neoclouds like Crusoe.

Since building autonomous weapons is a capital-intensive industry, Thornton began actively fundraising a couple of months ago, he told TechCrunch, and quickly discovered that the round would be popular with investors.

“We went out to raise 200 [million dollars] and we were extremely oversubscribed at 200 and happy with the price, so we decided to push up to 300. We’re still oversubscribed at the 300 mark,” Thornton said of the fundraising efforts.

Founded in 2023, Mach and its growth have been a wild ride for Thornton, who famously dropped out of MIT at 19 to start the company. VC enthusiasm is high for a few reasons. Other than AI, defense tech is a hot area for investment right now as newfangled autonomous weapons and drone defense systems prove themselves in battle in Ukraine.

Mach has also become prolific in its short time. The Huntington Beach, California-based company now has five autonomous vehicles in development: Viper, a jet-powered vertical takeoff vehicle; Glide, a high-altitude glider capable of launching weapons; Stratos, an airborne surveillance platform; Dart, a low-cost counter-drone interceptor; and Pike, intended for launching long-range munitions. Production is expected to begin next year on at least three of these systems, the company says.

Plus, just this week, it won a Department of Defense contract to create a new, sixth vehicle that the startup has never discussed publicly, Thornton tells TechCrunch. The contract is from the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to develop the Navy’s new “runway-independent strike aircraft,” as the startup describes it.

This will be for a very large aircraft, Thornton says, that could have applications in the commercial industry, too.

It has also grown from about a dozen employees in its first year to about 350 employees today, has a 115,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Huntington Beach, and design and production facilities in a number of other locations.

“So by the end of this year, in 2026, we will have brought on four new production facilities,” Thornton said.

But another reason VCs wrote big checks is that last month, Mach orchestrated an industry coup (excuse the pun) when it acquired solid rocket motor (SRM) startup Exquadrum in a $50 million cash-and-equity deal, as TechCrunch previously reported. It beat out upward of eight other potential buyers, the startup said.

There’s an acute shortage of SRMs as drones create unprecedented demand in a market controlled by two of the major prime defense contractors, Aerojet Rocketdyne and Northrop Grumman. The lead times for purchasing can stretch years.

With this buy, Mach controls its own destiny for rocket motors and also launched a new commercial business, Mach Energetics, to sell the engines. While Thornton declined to share revenue, he said the current mix is 50/50 between selling to the government and selling to other companies.

Thornton remembers a moment last year when all the fast growth of the company really hit him. Two years ago, the all-hands meetings were held in the conference room with “like 12 people,” he said. “At our two-year party we had like 200 plus chairs and it was standing-room only.”

Still, he said, he’s most proud of the speed of product development. That is, after all, the entire reason for his company and for the defense tech industry. The idea with these startups, backed by tech VCs, is to bring faster, more affordable products to the military and related commercial uses, as opposed to the expensive, bespoke offerings that legacy prime defense contractors offer.

“Traditionally, it’s four years to build a jet engine. That’s about the fastest you can find in this space. And we went from no team to building a team to a jet engine firing in about eight months,” Thornton said.