As the first investment of Sequoia Capital Defense Technology, Mach Industries is a beloved industry, collecting over $ 80 million since its founding in 2023. Its founder, Ethan Thornton, now 21, began Mach as a teenager MIT before going out to focus in full -time.
But a few months before a Sequoia seed investment in the summer of 2023, Mach had a major obstacle: a hydrogen gun prototype it was building by building, sending hundreds of bushes flying and injuring a team member, reported Forbes for the first time.
Speaking to Techcrunch during his strict appearance in San Francisco on April 3, Thornton addressed the incident for the first time, saying it was due to a lack of security sources.
“At that time, we were trying to self-finance them, and we had no money to direct these procedures as they should be,” he said.
After the explosion, the Mach industries “essentially closed all the work” until he collected funds from Sequoia Capital, Thornton said. Now, with those secured sources, Thornton says Mach has a full security team and is working with the US military to develop new weapons.
The beginning is also removed from its initial concentration in hydrogen, a gas that is famous unstable. Speaking in strictly, Thornton said hydrogen was “probably a bad technology bet” that required further development. But the pivot has not deceived Mach – away from him.
Now, Mach is building different types of weapons altogether, such as a new navigation missile and a bomb called “Glide” that can be fired from the edge of the space. Recently it has also landed a US Army contract and announced plans for a network of decentralized factories it calls “Forge”.
“Construction of many prototypes” is a major part of why the VCC has poured $ 85 million in the company, according to Thornton.
“It is not necessarily my ability to build these things, but more of our ability to actually work with the federal government to obtain recordings built around them,” he noted.
