Defense tech darling Mach Industries hits $1.8B valuation, a 4x jump in a year

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.