The defense landscape is being reshaped in real time. As geopolitical competition intensifies and the character of conflict becomes increasingly defined by software, autonomy, and distributed systems, the capabilities that matter are changing. The US and its allies need a defense industrial base that is faster, more adaptable, and more technologically ambitious than the one built for the last era. Anduril is emerging as one of the companies defining this transition.
Today, we're announcing our partnership with Anduril supporting its work to modernize defense with autonomous systems, AI-enabled mission software, and advanced manufacturing at scale.
Defense is entering a new era
The US defense industrial base was built for a different time, with long development cycles, low-rate production, and procurement models designed for a world where threats evolved slowly. That model is increasingly mismatched with what the moment demands: software-defined systems, rapid iteration, manufacturing at scale, and the ability to field capability in months rather than decades. As geopolitical competition intensifies and the character of conflict shifts, closing that gap is becoming one of the most consequential industrial challenges of our time.
AI will be a meaningful part of that shift, as a real capability layer embedded in perception, decision support, autonomy, and command-and-control. Just as important, those capabilities will need to be paired with modern manufacturing, rapid iteration, and the ability to field systems in the real world, not just prototype them in isolation.
This is what makes the current moment so important. A stronger American and allied defense posture will increasingly depend on companies that can combine frontier technology with deployment discipline – companies that can build quickly, learn quickly, and deliver systems that improve deterrence and readiness.
A strong team for a mission-critical problem
Brian Schimpf, Palmer Luckey, and the broader Anduril leadership team have built a company that combines frontier engineering ambition with the discipline required to operate in a highly demanding customer environments. It's hard to build advanced software. It's hard to manufacture at scale. And it's hard to earn trust in national security. Doing all four inside one company is even less common.
What stands out is not just the ambition of the vision, but the pace and consistency of execution behind it. Anduril more than doubled revenue in 2025 and announced program wins across autonomous aircraft, undersea systems, counter-drone defense and battlefield command-and-control, and delivered its first international program of record. The company is now ramping Arsenal-1, a high-rate manufacturing facility designed for scaled production, while Lattice – its software backbone for sensing, tracking, and coordination – has become foundational infrastructure across its entire portfolio. In a market where speed, technical depth and credibility don’t always show up in equal measure, that breadth of execution feels especially differentiated.
Looking ahead
Our partnership with Anduril reflects a broader growing conviction at ICONIQ in founders building at the intersection of software, AI, autonomy, and advanced manufacturing. In our view, Anduril is one of the key companies driving that shift.
We look forward to partnering with Brian, Palmer, and team, and supporting them as they continue helping define a new era of defense technology for the US and its allies.
Published:
May 14, 2026
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