How to Invest in Anduril Stock in 2024

The Department of Defense has deep pockets. In fact, the DoD has a budget of $841.4 billion for 2024.

A lot of this budget is sent to defense contractors, fueling multi-billion dollar corporations like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. While there are many smaller players in the industry, no company has had the technology to compete with the legacy contractors.

Until Anduril Industries.

Anduril is a defense technology company that specializes in autonomous vehicles, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. It builds surveillance towers, counter-drone technology, unmanned systems, and more.

It's not an overstatement to say that its technology could change the future of war. This potential hasn't been missed by investors - private equity money has been pouring in. Anduril recently raised one of the largest funding rounds ($1.5 billion) of the year.

And, even though it's still a private company, there's a way for you to invest in it, too.

How to invest in Anduril in 2024

Anduril Industries is a private company, meaning there is no stock symbol and no way for you to buy it in your traditional brokerage account. This will continue to be the case until it becomes publicly traded, either through an IPO or a direct listing.

While a future IPO is the goal, Luckey indicated in an interview in September 2023 that it will likely be at least three years before they take the company public.

Still, although it's not a public company, there is a way for accredited investors to buy Anduril stock today - via Hiive.

Accredited investors

Hiive is a marketplace which gives accredited investors access to high-growth, VC-backed startups.

Accreditation requirements

To qualify as an accredited investor, you must meet one of the following criteria:

• Have an annual income of $200,000 individually or $300,000 jointly
• Have a net worth that exceeds $1,000,000, excluding your primary residence
• Be a qualifying financial professional

There are over 2,000 private companies available for investment on Hiive, including Anduril:

There are 32 listings of Anduril stock available on Hiive (as of the time of this writing).

Each of these listings was created by a unique seller. Sellers may be current or former employees, venture capitalists, or angel investors.

After a seller creates a listing, buyers can either accept their asking price as listed or place bids and negotiate directly with the sellers. Buyers can also add a company to their watchlist and get notified of any new listings or successful transactions.

If you qualify as an accredited investor, you can see the complete order book (all bids, asks, and transactions) for every company on Hiive. You can create an account for free with the button below:

Register for Hiive

Retail investors

Unfortunately for retail investors, Hiive is only available to accredited investors. However, there is a way for retail investors to gain exposure.

The Fundrise Innovation Fund is a venture capital fund that is open to all investors. The fund invests in private, high-growth technology companies. It has invested in 20 pre-IPO companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Canva, and Anduril:

The Innovation Fund's investment team believes Anduril will help transform the military complex and has the potential to save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, and may be one of the most important companies of our generation.

The fund has an annual management fee of 1.85% and a minimum investment of $10.

Check out the Innovation Fund

Alternatives to investing in Anduril Industries

1. Wait for its IPO

The simplest way for retail investors to invest directly in Anduril is to simply wait for its IPO. Unfortunately, this might take some time.

As referenced above, Luckey gave an interview in September 2023 in which he indicated it was unlikely the company would have its IPO before late 2026. He's waiting until 1) the IPO market warms up again and 2) his company is in shape for Wall Street.

When Anduril does have its initial public offering, you'll need a brokerage account to buy shares. If you need a brokerage account, we recommend Public.

On the platform, you can invest in stocks, ETFs, Treasuries, corporate bonds, cryptocurrencies, and collectibles, all from one account.

2. Invest in other defense contractors

Though Anduril has a unique team of founders with expertise in VR, tech, and defense contracts, it's not the only company making autonomous vehicles and tech.

Here are a few other investment opportunities you may be interested in:

• Boeing (BA) produces unmanned vehicles that operate on land, sea, air, and in space. The company is worth $100.1 billion and generated $73.6 billion in revenue in the last 12 months.
• Lockheed Martin (LMT) also produces autonomous products like UAVs and software for piloting unmanned aircraft. Lockheed Martin brought in $71.1 billion in revenue in the last year and is valued at nearly $135 billion.
• Northrop Grumman (NOC) has its own line of autonomous systems, which includes helicopters, aircraft, and submarines. The company is valued at $75.6 billion and earned $40.8 billion in revenue in the last 12 months.
• Raytheon (RTX) also has a number of autonomous defense solutions. The company has TTM sales of $72.4 billion and a market capitalization of $159.2 billion.

While it may not be as exciting as investing in a startup, each of these companies has a long history of developing and selling defense solutions to the U.S. government.

They also have very deep pockets, which is a massive advantage when developing new technologies.

What is Anduril Industries?

Anduril Industries was founded on the thesis that the future of military tech relies more on advances in computer and software engineering, and less on hardware. 

In simple terms, Anduril is where Silicon Valley meets the Pentagon. 

With that thesis in mind, everything the company builds is capable of functioning autonomously. Each of its products are integrated with and operated by an AI-powered operating system called Lattice OS.

Anduril has contracts with the governments of the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and more. Below are a few examples of how they're using its technology:

• Surveillance towers: In March 2018, Anduril launched a test program with four of its Sentry Towers to detect human trafficking and drug smuggling at the Mexican border. According to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 200 additional towers were purchased following the pilot.
• Warfare software: In 2020, Anduril received a contract from the Air Force to work on the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), which allows forces to operate together via a secure network, allowing quick, real-time decision making.
• Counter-drone tech: In 2022, Anduril won an almost $1 billion, decade-long contract with Special Operations Command to provide counter-drone capabilities through its Lattice AI platform.
• Unmanned systems: In 2023, the U.K.'s Ministry of Defence (MoD) awarded Anduril a $21.4 million (initial), 31-month contract to explore the use of unmanned aerial systems in the Royal Air Force.

Earlier this year, Anduril beat out Lockheed, Northrop, and Boeing in a program to develop and test small unmanned fighter jet prototypes.

Who founded Anduril?

Anduril was founded by Palmer Luckey, who also founded Oculus, a virtual reality headset company acquired by Meta (META) for $2 billion.

In June 2017, Luckey partnered with former Palantir (PLTR) executives Matt Grimm, Trae Stephens, and Brian Schimpf, along with Oculus' former hardware lead, Joe Chen, to form Anduril.

Together, the team believes its unique set of experiences in virtual reality, hardware, technology, and defense contracting will help it disrupt the defense industry.

More about Anduril

Anduril Industries revenue

Anduril's revenue has grown at an impressive clip as it continues to land more and more contracts.

Here's a quick look at its revenue over the last few years, according to Sacra:

While the bulk of its revenue has come from the U.S. government, Anduril also has contracts with Australia and the U.K., as noted above.

Anduril's products

The company's flagship product is Lattice, which combines data from drones, cameras, and satellites to create a real-time situational awareness platform for military personnel. They can then use this information to make crucial decisions.

In addition to the command and control software, Anduril produces autonomous vehicles and systems to complete the network.

A few of its other products are:

• Anvil, an unmanned aerial vehicle that rams other drones using computer vision.
• Ghost 4, an autonomous tactical drone that is incredibly quiet and hard to track.
• ALTIUS, a series of tube-launched, unmanned aerial vehicles designed to accept modular payloads that can be operated in a mesh network.
• Dust, a ground-based sensor intended to detect people and objects with a limited line of sight.
• Dive-LD, an autonomous underwater vehicle used for surveillance and inspection.
• Fury, a long-range, subsonic military drone for surveillance and combat operations.
• Roadrunner, a turbojet-powered aircraft used for surveillance and to intercept cruise missiles and manned aircraft.
• Sentry Tower, a solar-powered surveillance tower operating autonomously with radar and thermal imaging.
• Rocket motors, which are used for defense and space launch systems.

What does the name “Anduril” mean?

Anduril is a reference to The Lord of the Rings book series written by J.R.R. Tolkien. Anduril is the sword of Aragon, one of the primary protagonists.

The name means “the flame of the West.”

Who owns Anduril?

Anduril was founded by Palmer Luckey, Matt Grimm, Trae Stephens, Brian Schimpf, and Joe Chen. In addition to the co-founders, current and former employees also own some portion of the company via stock options.

Anduril also has 49 investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Sands Capital, Counterpoint Global, Baillie Gifford, Thrive Capital, Valor Equity Partners, and Peter Thiel's Founders Fund. The company has raised more than $3.7 billion in funding.

The exact ownership split is not publicly available.

Anduril Industries valuation chart

In August 2024, Anduril recently raised a mind-bending $1.5 billion that valued the company at $14 billion. While raising the round, it was rumored that the company told investors it had doubled revenue to around $500 million in 2023.

Its $1.5 billion Series F brought its total amount raised to $3.7 billion. The $14 billion valuation it received was up 69% from the $8.5 billion valuation it earned in December 2022. Here's a look at how Anduril's valuation has changed over time:

Source: Crunchbase