Al Root

Anduril expects to be a publicly traded company one day. That's the good news for investors looking to own a piece of the hot defense start-up. The bad news is that there's no initial public offering scheduled yet.

Focusing on all the IPO talk, however, risks missing out on the big news company founder and CEO Palmer Luckey just made.

Luckey appeared on CNBC on Wednesday evening to discuss his company. Morgan Brennan asked him if an IPO was in the cards. "Yes... we've talked about it a number of times," Luckey said, adding, "we are definitely going to be a publicly traded company."

Investors get excited anytime the CEO of a hot start-up talks IPO, but there is still no timeline. Andruil doesn't need the money yet. Its latest capital raise of $2.5 billion earlier this month valued the company north of $30 billion, doubling the valuation from the previous one. Doubling is impressive, but the $30 billion isn't a surprise. The new valuation closely matches what Andruil was valued at on exchanges, such as Rainmaker, that specialize in trading shares of privately held companies.

The capital raise was eight to 10 times "oversubscribed," according to Anduril, which means there were orders for some $20 billion to $25 billion of stock. That gives investors an idea of how hungry people are to own the company. It has simply become the premier defense start-up with ambitions to dramatically increase America's ability to build modern weapons.

With private market demand like that, it is worth asking why Anduril should go public at all. Access to capital clearly isn't a concern, and revenue already hit $1 billion in 2024.

Luckey had an answer. "I don't think that there's really a path for a company like Anduril winning things in the shape of, let's say, a trillion dollar, F-35 joint strike fighter contract as a private company, " added Luckey. "It just doesn't seem to be a thing that can be done."

Potential reasons for being public at that scale can include investor transparency, oversight, and, of course, access to even larger pools of capital.

A major award for something such as F-35s, built by Lockheed Martin, which has a market value north of $100 billion, to a private company would be without precedent. However, private players do win smaller but still significant contracts, such as AM General's successful multibillion-dollar bid to supply the JLTV, or Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. Anduril already has a list of wins, too, including the development of unmanned fighter jets.

Still, Luckey's comments show the scale of Anduril's ambitions. That's the biggest news of all. The rest of the defense industry should take note.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com

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June 12, 2025 12:35 ET (16:35 GMT)

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