Mach Industries, a fast-rising defense tech startup, has already secured over $80 million in funding since launching in 2023. At just 21, founder Ethan Thornton is leading the company into some of the most advanced corners of military innovation. What began as a college project during his time at MIT is now a high-stakes operation working with the U.S. military.
But before its breakout success, Mach Industries faced a terrifying early hurdle.
In mid-2023, just months before its headline-making seed round with Sequoia Capital, a hydrogen-powered gun prototype exploded during development. The blast scattered shrapnel across the area and seriously injured a team member, according to a Forbes report.
Thornton publicly addressed the incident for the first time at the StrictlyVC event in San Francisco on April 3. Speaking with TechCrunch, he described the accident as a result of the team’s limited resources at the time. “We were trying to self-fund it,” he said, “and we didn’t have the money to run these procedures the way they should have been.”
Following the explosion, Mach shut down all development efforts. That pause lasted until it secured funding from Sequoia, which allowed the company to reset its approach. Now, Mach Industries has a dedicated safety team in place and is actively collaborating with the U.S. military on new weapons systems.
Thornton admitted that hydrogen may have been an ambitious starting point. “It was probably a bad tech bet,” he said, referring to the highly volatile nature of the gas. Since then, the company has pivoted away from hydrogen and refocused its energy on more stable, scalable tech.
That pivot hasn’t slowed Mach down. If anything, it has pushed the company into more ambitious projects. Today, the team is developing advanced weaponry including a cruise missile and a high-tech bomb called “Glide,” which can reportedly launch from the edge of space.
Mach’s momentum continues to build. The company recently landed a U.S. Army contract and announced plans to build a distributed manufacturing system dubbed “Forge.” This network of decentralized factories is designed to speed up production and streamline prototyping.
Thornton believes rapid iteration is one of the company’s biggest advantages. “It’s not necessarily my ability to build these things,” he said. “It’s our ability to actually work with the federal government to get programs of record built around them.”
That approach has clearly resonated with investors. With $85 million now in the bank, Mach Industries is positioning itself as a bold new player in the defense tech space — and one that’s not afraid to learn from early mistakes.
