Hadrian, the Torrance, California-based startup building AI-powered automated factories for U.S. defense and aerospace manufacturers, closed a $1.37 billion Series D round at a $7.87 billion valuation on August 62,3. The valuation is nearly five times where investors placed the company in January.
The round was co-led by WCM Investment Management, Washington Harbor Partners, Valor Equity Partners, 137 Ventures, and Baillie Gifford, with J.P. Morgan Strategic Investment Group joining as anchor co-lead through the bank's Security and Resiliency Initiative — a $1.5 trillion, 10-year program targeting industries flagged as critical to national and economic security. Participating investors include 1789 Capital, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, funds managed by Apollo and T. Rowe Price, CapitalG, Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, and Altimeter.
Founders Fund and Lux led Hadrian's $260 million Series C roughly a year ago, bringing total funding to date to approximately $2 billion, according to PitchBook estimates.
Hadrian operates what it calls factories-as-a-service: fully automated production facilities that pair robotics and process engineering with Opus, its proprietary software platform. Opus is already used by the U.S. Army and Navy, CEO Chris Power said. The company manufactures precision parts and increasingly full mission-critical systems for customers including Lockheed Martin, RTX, and Anduril.
"Production is now the frontline of deterrence. America's ability to lead will depend on whether we can build, train, and scale faster," Power said. He told CNBC that the fresh capital will fund investments in Hadrian's workforce, the Opus software platform, and production capacity in areas including submarines, munitions, and the drone industrial base1.
Hadrian's physical footprint now spans just under three million square feet across four sites. In March, the company opened a facility in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to mass-produce parts for submarines; that facility was structured as a public-private partnership valued at $2.4 billion. The company has also opened a facility in Mesa, Arizona, since its Series C.
ANALYSIS Hadrian's positioning is distinct within the defense-tech sector: rather than developing new AI-powered weapons systems, the company applies AI and automation to the manufacturing supply chain that feeds existing military platforms. The near-fivefold valuation jump in roughly seven months reflects the capital intensity of that model — building and equipping physical factories — and the scale of the contracts it is pursuing.
J.P. Morgan Strategic Investment Group's participation through its Security and Resiliency Initiative places Hadrian alongside other companies the bank has flagged as critical to national and economic security, framing defense manufacturing automation as a strategic infrastructure category rather than a conventional venture bet.
Power, an Australian entrepreneur, founded Hadrian in 2020. The company plans to use the new capital to open additional factories over the next year and expand into new production lines, including munitions and autonomous systems.