Hadrian raises $260M to build out automated factories for space and defense parts

Investors are continuing to rally behind the call to reindustrialize American industry, this time by building out a $260 million war chest for automated manufacturing startup Hadrian to scale its factory footprint and make even more machine parts.

Hadrian’s aim is to modernize American manufacturing by leveraging advanced automation to deliver mass-produced parts for aerospace and defense companies at a fraction of the time. It’s a huge change to the status quo: a manufacturing industry that’s largely populated by dozens of small machining shops run by an aging workforce.

Hadrian’s first target was high-precision CNC machining, a manufacturing process that makes parts to extremely tight tolerances — often measured in the microns, not millimeters (a single human hair is anywhere from 50 to 120 microns in thickness). Now, in addition to that core CNC offering, the company is getting ready to diversify into welding, casting, additive, and other processes, Hadrian founder and CEO Chris Power said in a post on X. (He did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment on the new round.)

The hefty new round will also go toward building out a new Arizona facility, dubbed “Factory 3,” slated to come online by Christmas 2025. That factory will offer four times the machining throughput of Hadrian’s second factory. Hadrian is also expanding its 500,000-square-foot headquarters and R&D space in Torrance, California, with the new funding.  

The company will also start offering divisions for maritime and munitions-specific parts “to meet the sale and speed needed to reclaim our birthright as the industrial superpower of the world,” Power said on X.

Hadrian’s business model is not just selling parts, but also a “factories as a service” model that will see dedicated facilities for customers that want to ensure committed factory capacity.

Speaking at the Reindustrialization Summit on Wednesday, Power argued that reshoring domestic production is nothing less than existential: “This country is heading into a generational fight,” he said. “The hour is extremely late. The great game is on … We have an incredibly short window to prepare for this, fix it, reindustrialize the country and return to what made us great in the first place.”

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The new round was led by Founders Fund and Lux Capital, with Morgan Stanley providing financing for the factory expansion. New investors Altimeter and 1789 Capital, and existing investors a16z, Construct Capital, and 137 Ventures also participated. The company has now raised nearly $500 million since it was founded in 2020.