As the first technological investment of defense of Capital, Macho industries He is a favorite of the industry, raising more than $ 80 million since its foundation in 2023. Its founder, Ethan Thornton, now 21 years old, began Mach as a teenage student before concentrating full time in his startup.
But a few months before obtaining a Sequoia seed investment in the summer of 2023, Mach had a great setback: a prototype of hydrogen weapons that he was building exploded, sending hundreds of shrapnel pieces flying and hurting a team member, Forbes first reported.
Speaking to TechCrunch during its appearance in Strictlyvc in San Francisco on April 3, Thornton addressed the incident publicly for the first time, saying that it happened due to the lack of security resources.
“At that time, we were trying to self -finance it, and we didn’t have the money to execute these procedures as they should have been,” he said.
After the explosion, Mach Industries “essentially closed all the work” until it raised capital sequoia funds, said Thornton. Now, with those insured resources, Thornton says that Mach has a complete security team and is working with the US army to develop new weapons.
The startup has also moved away from its initial approach to hydrogen, a gas that is famous volatile. Speaking in Strictlyvc, Thornton said hydrogen was “probably a bad technological bet” that required greater development. But the pivot has not failed Mach, far from that.
Now, Mach is building different types of weapons completely, such as a new cruise missile and a bomb called “glide” that can be triggered from the edge of space. He also recently achieved an US Army Contract. Uu. And announced plans for a network of decentralized factories called “Forge”.
“Building many prototypes” is a key part of why VCs have poured $ 85 million into the company, according to Thornton.
“It is not necessarily my ability to build these things, but rather our ability to work with the federal government to obtain registration programs built around it,” he said.
