BREAKING: Hadrian Raises $260M Series C

Led by Delian Asparouhov of Founders Fund & Lux Capital

*Still BREAKING (slight delay due to being locked in a conference room for 30 hours)

“We Need 20 More Hadrians”

Chris Power, CEO of Hadrian, returns to Sourcery to announce the company’s freshly raised $260M Series C—bringing Hadrian’s total funding to ~$500M since founding the company in 2020. This round was closed in nearly 3 weeks, with equity led by Delian Asparouhov of Founders Fund & Lux Capital, alongside a factory expansion loan facility from Morgan Stanley.

With new investors including Erik Kriessmann of Altimeter & 1789 Capital, and investment from existing investors like a16z, Construct Capital, 137 Ventures, & more. This funding supports Hadrian’s rapid U.S. expansion, including Factory 3 in Mesa, Arizona, & the build-out of new divisions like Hadrian Maritime.

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In the 12 months since its Series B, Hadrian has delivered 10x year-over-year growth, establishing itself as a leader in AI-driven manufacturing for flight hardware and frontier tech. With its Series C, the company plans to scale 4–5 new facilities over the next year to accelerate production across high-demand defense programs & key DoD priorities.

Chris explains how Hadrian is evolving from it’s original precision part production to full product manufacturing, covering everything from components to assemblies to mission-critical platforms. He also shares how the company is integrating AI across its stack, building proprietary labeled data in a space where legacy manufacturing systems have long been offline.

The conversation also touches on geopolitics, the “Davidson window,” industrial readiness, & why Hadrian is betting big on automation and American workforce reinvention.

Thank you to the entire Reindustrialize team for helping Sourcery set up shop to record 20 interviews in 30 hours! More to come..

Highlights:

• $260M Series C to expand into full product manufacturing & naval defense

• Factory 3 opening in Arizona with 270,000 sqft

• Hadrian generating one of the only scalable labeled data sets for AI in manufacturing

• 10x YoY Growth & National Expansion Plans

Deep dive below!

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Highlights:

(00:00) - Chris Power Returns

(01:00) - $260M Series C: Founders Fund, Lux, Morgan Stanley

(03:35) - Factory 3 in Arizona & Expansion

(05:10) - Hadrian’s Product Vision: parts, assemblies, full systems

(06:55) - Customers: hardware startups, primes, DoD

(08:30) - Why America Needs 20 Hadrians

(10:50) - Financing Factories like solar & data centers

(13:45) - Reindustrialize 2025: momentum in policy & defense

(15:45) - The Davidson Window: China, Taiwan, & U.S. readiness

(22:57) - AI in Manufacturing: Hadrian’s data moat & automation strategy

(25:55) - Future Predictions Powered by Kalshi: Trump, China, Recession

(30:30) - Bloopers

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Why Hadrian’s $260M Series C is a Turning Point for U.S. Manufacturing

From Series B to 10x Growth

Since its Series B raise, Hadrian has achieved tenfold year-over-year revenue growth. That scale, unprecedented in defense manufacturing, was made possible by the successful launch of its Los Angeles facility and the acceleration of AI-powered automation.

"No one's ever scaled a manufacturing company this fast," said CEO Chris Power. "We basically 10x'd revenue in four quarters last year. The automation was really kicking into gear."

The rapid growth put Hadrian in a strong position for its Series C. "We were done and closed within the round from starting to pitch to term sheets being signed... within, I think, three weeks," Power added. "Honestly, it's just because we've been working really hard for a year."

This momentum has not only validated Hadrian’s early vision but set a new bar for what deep tech and industrial companies can achieve in compressed timeframes. From machining precision parts to producing flight hardware at scale, Hadrian has become a case study in the commercial potential of defense manufacturing done right.

Demand is off the Charts

“We work with America's largest scaled primes. So anyone that you would see building fighter jets, drones, munitions, weapons platforms, missiles, commercial aircraft, we are fastly becoming their fastest growing and most important supplier, as well as a huge business in space launch. So high precision components that then get assembled onto rockets and satellites.

And for our government business, what we're primarily focused on is naval applications, where there's a huge scarcity of a skilled workforce and we just can't get submarines or ships in the water fast enough, as well as in the munitions categories where there's not much innovation to be done, but you just need to be able to produce a lot very fast and we just don't have that capability in the US anymore.”

Source: Payload

Scaling the Mission: Full Stack Production & Factory 3

Hadrian is now expanding from precision part manufacturing to full product production. The company’s capabilities now cover the entire advanced manufacturing stack, from raw materials to complete platforms. The Series C funds will help fuel this shift.

"We’re launching Factory 3 in Arizona, which will be up and running by Christmas," said Power. The Mesa-based site spans 270,000 square feet and represents $200 million in capital investment, expected to create 350 new jobs. Hadrian is also planning to open 4–5 more facilities over the next year.

The company is also introducing a new model called Factories-as-a-Service. "It allows defense primes and other industries to scale factories to meet existing or new Program of Record demand for parts, assemblies, or entire products," the company said in its official release.

“Factories as a Service is well underway with several select customers to rebuild and scale legacy facilities that are years behind schedule... as well as helping customers Design, Prototype and Produce whole new programs from Day 1.

We've been silently working on new manufacturing capabilities for Factories as a Service like Welding, Casting, Additive & more. Machining will be our core focus for public factories, but for dedicated/private factories, we're expanding rapidly into all manufacturing domains, and will later launch these into public factories.”

This shift from parts supplier to platform builder signals a new era of ambition: building not just faster machines, but the infrastructure to power an entire sector.

Hadrian Maritime: A New Chapter

One of the most significant developments from this round is the launch of Hadrian Maritime, a dedicated division focused on shipbuilding and naval defense.

"What we're primarily focused on is naval applications, where there's a huge scarcity of a skilled workforce," said Power. "We just can't get submarines or ships in the water fast enough."

Hadrian Maritime is just the beginning. Future divisions will focus on munitions, missile systems, and uncrewed aerial systems, each representing a strategic expansion of Hadrian’s defense footprint.

This diversification aligns with the company’s long-term vision of becoming a central pillar in America’s defense-industrial network, addressing critical capacity shortfalls across land, sea, air, and space.

Why We Need 20 More Hadrians

Chris Power is adamant that Hadrian alone isn’t enough. "The problem for the country is so large that we need about 20 Hadrians," he said. From biotech and semiconductors to drone manufacturing and pharmaceuticals, the lack of onshore production capacity spans nearly every critical sector.

He pointed to the limitations of existing legacy infrastructure and the importance of new entrants with clean-sheet approaches. "I don't think there's going to be more SpaceXs or more Andurils or more new defense primes. It's very hard to get over the scale of capex, the operating scale, and enough equity dollars."

That’s why Power welcomes more industrial startups, even competitors. In response to Y Combinator’s recent "Request for Startups" focused on rebuilding American physical infrastructure, he said: "We need like orders of magnitude more than this... Competition is really good. That's the best thing about America. I want more people to keep me awake at night other than President Xi."

He continued, "YC stepping into this just for the fact of getting Stanford and Harvard kids and kids from the Midwest back involved in building software for the real world is really culturally important for the country."

Hadrian isn’t just building factories, it’s trying to ignite a generational movement around hard tech, supply chain resiliency, and the next wave of American industrial ambition.

AGI: Putting ‘Turing’ in Manufacturing

As AI continues to reshape every major industry, Hadrian is at the forefront of applying artificial intelligence, and increasingly AGI-like systems, to modern manufacturing. The company has integrated AI throughout its operations, from process automation to quality control, but its most significant moat may be its proprietary labeled data.

"Manufacturing in the United States has been offline for 30 years," said Power. "There’s no Stack Overflow, no GitHub, no code base to train on. We're the only company that's actually generating labeled data that you can then train models around for advanced manufacturing in the US."

This dataset advantage allows Hadrian to build increasingly intelligent systems over time. "Our strategy has always been to automate 70% of a task and then train models to gradually take on more complexity," Power explained. With systems in a regulated environment like ITAR, off-the-shelf AI tools aren't usable, giving Hadrian a unique technological lead.

Power added, "We're probably the only company actually doing AI and manufacturing that's scalable. The core thing is no one else has the dataset, and you can't make it available online."

As AGI capabilities advance across the software industry, Hadrian sees potential to rapidly spin up new product lines and workflows within its factories, turning labeled industrial data into a true accelerant for national scale production.

The Geopolitical Stakes

To Power, reindustrializing America is no longer optional, it’s foundational to national resilience. "America cannot afford to lose another generation of industrial capacity," he said. "We’re building the factories that will secure American leadership in advanced manufacturing and create new jobs here in the United States."

"The highest risk of China is the strongest from 2027 to 2037," Power explained. "We're in a cold war where everyone's gearing up."

He added, "The goal is to never get into a war, but all great conflicts start when both sides misinterpret how strong the other one is. And I think we are misinterpreting how robust our industrial base is."

Financing the Future

A key part of Hadrian’s strategy is unlocking new models for financing industrial growth, similar to how AI data centers and solar projects were once underwritten.

"Our CFO is from SolarCity," said Power. "When that huge solar revolution was happening, no one knew how to underwrite the market... We're connecting the dots on the financing side for massive factory expansion."

Power believes Hadrian is setting a template for how to structure, scale, and fund capex-intensive businesses that combine hardware, software, and workforce transformation. He argues that venture-scale returns are possible in industrial sectors, if they’re approached with the right automation, product design, and financial architecture.

Looking Ahead

As Hadrian moves into its next phase, the company remains focused on building the infrastructure America needs. Faster than legacy systems can deliver.

"It's brutally difficult," said Power. "But you too can do it. You just have to go west, young man or woman."

With a pipeline of new factories, expanded product categories, and a mounting sense of urgency across defense and national security, Hadrian is no longer just a startup, it’s becoming the industrial platform for a new era in America.

Revisit

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