Final week, Anduril and Palantir delivered the primary Tactical Intelligence Focusing on Entry Node (TITAN) — image a tactical army truck designed to brush up large quantities of knowledge from sensors in house, in addition to throughout terrains and excessive altitudes — reaching the primary main milestone in its $178 million contract with the U.S. Military. It was an enormous win for the primarily software program firm, which then introduced on Anduril and Northrop Grumman, amongst different subcontractors, to assist with among the {hardware} parts.
Palantir gained the {hardware} contract again in March after an intensive prototype design course of in opposition to RTX, formally Raytheon. For context, Raytheon, one of many main protection primes, has a market cap of about $155 billion, dwarfing Palantir’s $66 billion as of writing and Anduril’s current $14 billion valuation.
In March, Tom Keane, senior vp of engineering at Anduril, promised Protection Information that the Anduril-Palantir group would ship the TITAN prototype in mere months. About 4 months later, the businesses delivered.
Subsequent up, troopers will put the TITAN by an intensive testing course of.
For Anduril, getting pulled on to the contract by Palantir is an instance of a rising tide lifting all boats. Like Palantir, which bought its begin doing anti-terrorism software program, Anduril was really a software program firm first — it kicked off with surveillance instruments for border management. The TITAN victory exhibits that protection tech startups, which frequently begin in software program, have a path to successful main contracts with {hardware} elements.
“We is perhaps the primary software program prime, however we don’t intend to be the one software program prime,” Bryant Choung, senior vp for protection at Palantir, instructed Breaking Protection again in March.
Anduril’s ambitions transcend subcontracting; the corporate has been open about desirous to be the lead contractor on large contracts. The startup is a last contender for the collaborative fight plane program, and instructed Breaking Protection final week that it will compete to be the prime contractor on an upcoming program designing a supersonic interceptor to take down cruise missiles.
