Hadrian, the Los Angeles-area manufacturer that builds highly automated factories for defense and aerospace parts, raised a $1.37 billion Series D at a $7.87 billion valuation, the company announced on August 6, 2026. The round brings Hadrian's total capital raised to roughly $2 billion, TechCrunch reported.
Who is funding it
The round was co-led by WCM Investment Management, Washington Harbour Partners, Valor Equity Partners, 137 Ventures and Baillie Gifford, with JPMorganChase's Strategic Investment Group joining as an anchor co-lead through its Security and Resiliency Initiative. 1789 Capital took a major participating position, and the round also drew Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, funds managed by Apollo, accounts advised by T. Rowe Price, CapitalG, Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, Altimeter and Construct Capital, according to the company's announcement.
Baillie Gifford, T. Rowe Price, Apollo, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management and JPMorganChase are public-market and asset-management investors rather than venture funds.
What Hadrian builds
Founded in 2020 by chief executive Chris Power, Hadrian makes precision parts and full mission-critical systems for defense and aerospace customers, with lines covering munitions, shipbuilding components and autonomous systems. Its Opus platform is an AI system that interprets legacy engineering drawings and automates machining and inspection. The company says it can train a factory technician in 30 days or less.
Hadrian sells in three modes: precision components made to spec, manufacturing-as-a-service in which a customer gets dedicated capacity in a Hadrian cell, and factories-as-a-service, where Hadrian designs and operates an entire plant.
The four factories
Hadrian now operates just under 3 million square feet across four sites. Two are in Torrance, California. Factory 3 opened in Mesa, Arizona in January 2026 at a cost of about $200 million. Factory 4, in Cherokee, Alabama at the Barton Riverfront Industrial Park near Muscle Shoals, opened in March 2026 on the site of a former FreightCar America plant; at 2.2 million square feet it represents $2.4 billion in combined public and private investment, is partly funded by the U.S. Navy, and is expected to create up to 1,000 jobs, as 256 Today reported. It produces components for the Columbia- and Virginia-class submarine programs.
A fifth site is planned for Texarkana, Texas under an $80 million U.S. Army contract, and the Series D is earmarked for three more AI-powered factories in the United States plus the jump from 700 to 2,000 employees within the next year, Manufacturing Dive reported.
"Production is now the frontline of deterrence," Power said in the announcement. "America's ability to lead will depend on whether we can build, train, and scale faster."
The defense-tech funding run
Hadrian is the latest in a sustained run of nine- and ten-figure rounds into companies that make physical things for the government. Shield AI raised a $1.5 billion Series G at a $12.7 billion valuation in July and acquired Aechelon in the same move. Days before Hadrian's round, Valar Atomics raised a $1 billion Series B led by Sequoia at a $6 billion valuation. Toyota-backed Walden Robotics raised a $300 million seed at a $1.1 billion valuation in July.
Valor Equity Partners and JPMorganChase's Strategic Investment Group had co-led another billion-dollar round days earlier, when Base Power raised $1 billion at a $13 billion valuation.
Another physical-infrastructure round closed in August: autonomous trucking company Gatik raised $200 million in a Series D.
Source: TechCrunch, PR Newswire
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