Hadrian Secures $260M to Expand Automated Factories for Aerospace and Defense

Hadrian, an automated manufacturing startup, has raised $260 million to scale its factory footprint and diversify into new processes. The funding will be used to build a new Arizona facility, expand headquarters, and offer "factories as a service" model. The company aims to modernize American manufacturing by leveraging automation to deliver mass-produced parts for aerospace and defense companies at a fraction of the time.

Hadrian, a leading automated manufacturing startup, has successfully raised $260 million in Series C funding to scale its factory footprint and diversify into new manufacturing processes. The funding round, led by Founders Fund, Lux Capital, and Morgan Stanley, will support the construction of a new facility in Arizona, expansion of its headquarters in California, and the development of a "factories as a service" model [3].

The new Arizona facility, named Factory 3, is slated to come online by Christmas 2025 and will offer four times the machining throughput of Hadrian's second factory. The company aims to modernize American manufacturing by leveraging advanced automation to deliver mass-produced parts for aerospace and defense companies at a fraction of the time [3].

Hadrian's CEO, Chris Power, emphasized the importance of reshoring domestic production and argued that it is an existential challenge for the country. "This country is heading into a generational fight. The hour is extremely late. The great game is on… We have an incredibly short window to prepare for this, fix it, reindustrialize the country and return to what made us great in the first place," he said at the Reindustrialization Summit [3].

The funding will also enable Hadrian to expand its 500,000-square-foot headquarters and R&D space in Torrance, California. The company plans to start divisions for maritime and munitions-specific parts to meet the sale and speed needed to reclaim its position as the industrial superpower of the world [3].

Hadrian's mission to reindustrialize America aligns with the broader trend of U.S. startup funding surging in the first half of 2025, driven largely by major AI investments. AI accounted for 64.1% of the total deal value and 35.6% of the deal count in the first half of the year, with significant deals such as OpenAI's $40 billion round and Meta's $14.3 billion purchase of a stake in Scale AI [1].

Despite the robust startup funding, venture capital fundraising continued to face headwinds, with just $26.6 billion raised across 238 funds in the first half of 2025. However, a rebound in exit activity, including IPOs and M&A, has brought a sense of optimism for the remainder of the year [1].

References:
[1] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/artificial-intelligence/us-ai-startups-see-funding-surge-while-more-vc-funds-struggle-to-raise-data-shows/articleshow/122611004.cms
[2] https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/hadrian-raises-260m-build-ai-170200218.html
[3] https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/17/hadrian-raises-260m-to-build-out-automated-factories-for-space-and-defense-parts/