Hadrian raises $1.37 billion to build automated defense factories

Why it matters

Hadrian's round brings infrastructure-scale finance into venture-backed manufacturing. Power must prove owned factories can stay utilized while meeting defense-grade quality and schedules.

Hadrian, founded and led by Chris Power (@2112Power), announced a $1.37 billion Series D on August 6th to expand its network of highly automated American factories. The financing valued the Torrance, California-based manufacturer at just under $8 billion after the round, Axios reported.

JPMorganChase's Strategic Investment Group served as the anchor co-lead through its Security and Resiliency Initiative. The other co-leads were WCM Investment Management, Washington Harbour Partners, Valor Equity Partners, 137 Ventures and Baillie Gifford.

The investor list fits the size and purpose of the round. Power is financing physical production capacity with long construction timelines and substantial fixed costs. Hadrian's pitch depends on operating those factories with the speed and utilization of software infrastructure while meeting the quality controls of aerospace and defense manufacturing.

Power's factory thesis gets an infrastructure budget

Power arrived in the United States from Australia in 2019 with about $6,000 and one close American contact, according to a 2024 TechCrunch profile. He had previously run small e-commerce operations and led sales and marketing at Australian workforce-software provider Ento.

After spending weeks cold-calling manufacturers, Power started ADSC, an investment vehicle intended to acquire aerospace and defense suppliers. He concluded that buying conventional factories would not add capacity fast enough. Hadrian followed in 2020 around a more demanding plan: build the software, production systems and factories together.

That vertical integration remains Hadrian's central distinction. Opus, Hadrian's factory software, interprets engineering designs and automates parts of manufacturing and inspection. Hadrian combines Opus with robotics, CNC equipment and human operators, then sells precision components, dedicated manufacturing capacity and entire customer-specific factories.

Hadrian therefore carries risks that software vendors and manufacturing marketplaces can avoid. Every new facility adds equipment, property and staffing costs before production reaches steady volume. The operating advantage appears only when Hadrian keeps machines busy, maintains defense-grade quality and moves programs from engineering drawings into repeatable production faster than incumbent suppliers.

The Series D gives Power the balance sheet to pursue that model at an industrial scale. Hadrian had nearly 3 million square feet across four sites when the round was announced, according to Axios, with additional headquarters and engineering facilities planned in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The largest current example is Factory 4 in Cherokee, Alabama. Hadrian and the U.S. Navy opened the 2.2 million-square-foot site on March 20th to manufacture components for Virginia-class attack submarines and Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines. That work pushes Hadrian beyond producing individual precision parts and into dedicated capacity for some of the Pentagon's most schedule-sensitive programs.

Hadrian also operates facilities in Torrance and Mesa, Arizona. Its current model includes Precision Components, Manufacturing-as-a-Service and Factories-as-a-Service, under which Hadrian can install production cells at a customer's site or operate an entire dedicated facility around a customer's requirements.

The round raises the burden of proof

Hadrian's valuation is running ahead of the financial information Power has previously made public. In February 2024, he told TechCrunch that revenue had risen above $20 million during the first 12 months of selling to customers. Hadrian later claimed 10-fold year-over-year growth alongside its July 2025 Series C announcement. Those figures describe different periods and do not establish the current revenue supporting a valuation near $8 billion.

Hadrian has also said its automated operations outperform conventional factories, including past claims of producing parts 10 times faster and operating three to four times more efficiently than industry norms. Those comparisons remain Hadrian's own measurements. The more consequential evidence will come from delivery schedules, factory utilization and repeat orders as the new facilities move into sustained production.

Capital is gathering around the same production bottleneck. Los Angeles-based Machina Labs raised $124 million in February to expand robotic manufacturing for large metal structures. CloudNC sells automated machining software to existing shops, while Xometry and Fictiv route orders through supplier networks. Hadrian has chosen the most capital-intensive route by owning the software and much of the production capacity.

JPMorganChase's participation makes that route easier to finance. The bank describes its Security and Resiliency Initiative as a 10-year program covering advanced manufacturing, defense, aerospace and other industries tied to U.S. economic security. Its direct investment in Hadrian connects Power's factory network to a pool of capital designed for projects that resemble strategic infrastructure as much as venture-backed technology.

Power told Axios the past five years had been a slog, with broader urgency around domestic manufacturing emerging only during the previous 18 months. The $1.37 billion round gives him the resources he lacked when he arrived in 2019 and began calling machine shops from a hotel room. It also commits Hadrian to proving that a software-led manufacturer can deploy factories quickly, fill them with long-duration defense work and preserve its efficiency as the footprint expands.