Over the last year, we’ve seen more generalist venture capital firms make forays into defense tech, a niche once relegated to specialized investors comfortable with revenue based on uneven government contracts and who weren’t restricted from investing in weapons makers by their limited partners. Furientis, a startup founded last year that builds missiles for intercepting attacks, is close to raising $25 million in a funding round that would value it more than $125 million including the money invested, two people familiar with the investment tell us. And we’re hearing Benchmark, known for backing Uber and Snap in their early days, has been in talks to lead, the people said.
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Over the last year, we’ve seen more generalist venture capital firms make forays into defense tech, a niche once relegated to specialized investors comfortable with revenue based on uneven government contracts and who weren’t restricted from investing in weapons makers by their limited partners.
Furientis, a startup founded last year that builds missiles for intercepting attacks, is close to raising $25 million in a funding round that would value it more than $125 million including the money invested, two people familiar with the investment tell us. And we’re hearing Benchmark, known for backing Uber and Snap in their early days, has been in talks to lead, the people said.
Furientis would stand out as a Benchmark investment. So far this year, the venture firm has led investments in AI agent startup Gumloop and sales platform Monaco, the type of asset-light software investments that have been the firm’s bread and butter over decades. That said, it also led a $170 million round for the space data center company Starcloud earlier this year. And it bought $250 million in shares in late 2025 and early 2026 in Cerebras, the AI chips designer that went public earlier this year.
Benchmark and Furientis declined to comment. Details of the round could change.
If it goes ahead with the investment, Benchmark would be joining an increasingly crowded field of VC firms backing defense tech. The commercial success of SpaceX and Anduril, and a defense-tech friendly Trump administration, have attracted more investors to these startups.
Ribbit Capital, the Micky Malka-founded firm that once hewed to a fintech focus, recently co-led a $300 million round for another missile startup, Mach Industries. Kleiner Perkins, known for investments in Amazon and Google, earlier this year backed autonomous ship builder Saronic Technologies, leading its Series D at a $9.25 billion post-money valuation.
And OpenAI investor Thrive Capital has backed multiple rounds in Palmer Luckey’s Anduril Industries, recently co-leading its Series H funding round at a $61 billion post-money valuation.
Some traditional venture capital firms have in the past shied away from defense tech not only because of the high costs of building and running hardware businesses, but also because selling to one buyer (the government) doesn’t scale in the way traditional VC businesses have. But the war with Iran has depleted American missile supplies, making novel solutions all the more appealing to the U.S. government. The Pentagon recently allocated $53 billion to missile and rocket production and is also attempting to simplify the procurement process, which might accommodate startups selling into the government.
The El Segundo, Calif., Furientis aims to solve the supply crunch by making missile interceptors en masse and for a lot less than legacy defence contractors. Co-founder and CEO Brody Franzen, who previously worked at Virgin Galactic and the missile startup Castelion, told Fortune earlier this year that Furientis is using commercial off-the-shelf components and automotive-style assembly processes to keep costs to $250,000 per missile, compared to the $1 million to $5 million cost of its legacy competitors.
Silent Ventures, a solo GP firm led by defense tech investor Jackson Moses, led Furientis’s $5 million pre-seed round in May. Bessemer Ventures, Multiball Capital and SV Angel also invested.
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