In the three years since teen entrepreneur Ethan Thornton founded Mach Industries, the defense startup has raised $500 million, reaching a $1.8 billion valuation with backing from Silicon Valley investors including Khosla Ventures and Sequoia Capital.
Its weapons and defense systems are used by the U.S. Army, Air Force and Special Operations Command and allied governments, yet Thornton insists it’s still early days for his Huntington Beach company.
“We’re just getting started,” Thornton told the Business Journal on July 30. “It’s day one.
The bulk of the funding came in May, when the firm raised $300 million.
“We expect to raise more capital in the next year,” the 22-year-old founder and CEO said.
Mach’s latest funding round is the latest sign that Orange County has reemerged as a hub for defense technology. It is among a growing number of local defense companies benefiting as Pentagon spending returns to the region, particularly for autonomous systems and other advanced military technologies.
Investors have also responded with billions of dollars in funding.
Anduril Industries raised $5 billion in May, more than doubling the Costa Mesa-based company’s valuation to $61 billion. Since Karman Space & Defense, also in Huntington Beach, went public in 2025, its valuation has surged to $7.5 billion. Irvine-based drone company Dzyne Technologies was recently purchased by Ondas in an $876 million deal.
Mach ranks No. 16 on the Business Journal annual list of aerospace and defense companies operating in Orange County.
Full Production for Battlefield
Mach offers an array of weapons including the Viper attack drone, the Glide attack glider and Dart, a low-cost interceptor that can take down incoming hostile drones.
Thornton’s next move: scaling production to levels more commonly associated with the automotive industry.
“The big push is to get on full-rate production and start deploying our stuff on the battlefield,” says Thornton, who was a teenager when he founded the company in 2023.
The company currently works out of a 115,000-square-foot site in Huntington Beach, where the headquarters will remain. The site, called Forge 1, is dedicated to engineering, rapid prototyping, and advanced manufacturing.
“We’ve made about a thousand vehicles…over the last 12 months,” Thornton said.
He adds: “We’ll be looking to at least 10x that over the next 12 months,” Thornton said.
“A good portion of it will be in Huntington Beach, but a lot will also be at other locations,” Thornton said (see story below).
Sequoia, Khosla, Infinite Capital Backing
The $300 million round was led by tech-focused funds Infinite Capital and Ribbit Capital.
The new investors join longstanding backers including Bedrock Capital, Sequoia Capital and Khosla Ventures.
Mach currently has 435 employees companywide, with 400 in Orange County.
There were more than 100 open positions posted on the company’s website as of Aug. 5.
In February, Torrance-based Divergent Technologies and Mach Industries announced a partnership to deliver Venom, an autonomous strike aircraft.
Mach said in May it had purchased rocket propulsion firm Exquadrum, which operates out of a 70,000-square-foot facility in Victorville.
While Mach is interested in possible further acquisitions, it is concentrating on organic growth.
Developing Fixed-Wing Atlas
Mach is working with Whisper Aero of Nashville, Tennessee, to develop a fixed-wing airplane dubbed Atlas that takes off like a VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) from “ships and austere locations.” Long term, Thornton sees the plane could have passenger applications for airlines.
“Once we’re in production on the aircraft and the aircraft’s working, we’ll look at other markets.”
In February, the company announced the opening of its new hub in San Francisco.
Mach’s HB Expansion Likely, Full-Scale Production Elsewhere
Mach Industries is operating out of a 115,000-square-foot space in Huntington Beach and will likely take more space there as part of the company’s expansion.
But as the company ramps up to an automotive-style production pace, those facilities will be elsewhere, founder and CEO Ethan Thornton told the Business Journal.
Reports out of Fort Worth in June said Mach Industries has been exploring building a $74 million manufacturing facility in the area, one which could support up to 1,000 jobs.
Mach Industries builds weapons and defense systems autonomous drones and other products and was founded in 2023 by Thornton when he was a teen. It’s currently valued at around $1.8 billion.
—Kevin Costelloe
Founder Wants Focus on Weapons, Not Age
Ethan Thornton, 22, has long urged customers and investors to look beyond his age and more to the quality of Mach Industries’ weapons technology.
“I think it’s more true now than it’s ever been,” he told the Business Journal on July 30.
It comes up as more young people dive into the defense area.
“I think a lot of people actually use their age as some ability to generate hype and other things. And I want to very much avoid doing that and that’s why I get frustrated when folks talk about my age. Past that, I don’t really care that much,” Thornton says.
Mach Industries builds autonomous drones and other products and was founded in 2023 by Thornton when he was 19. As is constantly noted, he was a dropout from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the time.
Mach is currently valued at around $1.8 billion.
He’s raised $500 million for the firm without having a mentor to guide him through meetings with investors.
“My approach has always been just to sit down and have a conversation,” he says.
Is wearing a suit to top-level meetings a necessary part of the presentation?
“For D.C. yes. For investors no,” he says.
“You have to focus on solving really hard, really important problems. If you do that, the money tends to follow. If you ever make money the optimization, things tend to fall apart,” Thornton said.
Thornton formed his current company in Austin, Texas, and then, reversing a pattern of OC companies heading to Texas, he moved it to Orange County.
—Kevin Costelloe