The 19-year-old MIT Dropout ‘Replacing Gunpowder’
Pentagon leaders have acknowledged that getting startup tech to the warfighter is a national security imperative, which has led to greater willingness to work with companies outside the small suite of aerospace primes.
Few stories embody this incredible shift more than one that emerged in the middle of June: that of Mach Industries, and its 19-year-old founder Ethan Thornton. The company has captured interest from VCs and the DoD, landing Sequoia Capital’s first investment into defense tech and courting interest from the Pentagon. Mach’s seed round, which included participation from Marque VC and Champion Hill Ventures, came to $5.7 million.
Mach is developing hydrogen-powered platforms for the military, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), munitions and hydrogen generation systems. The company is betting that techniques like hydrogen combustion, powered by an energy source that can be manufactured in the field, will give the military an advantage in case conflicts with near-peer adversaries arise.
Speaking generally in a recent interview with TechCrunch, Thornton described a solution that’s less expensive, and perhaps less exquisite, than the ultra-costly weapons programs of today.