Trae Stephens, also partner of the Founders Fund, took 19 on the list of Midas Forbes from 2025.
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Last week, Anduril announced that it had raised a Mega financing round headed by the founding fund, which the corporate rated over 30 billion US dollars and doubled its evaluation in lower than a yr.
The deal has also shaped a brand new billionaire in defense technology: the chairman of the corporate, Trae Stephens.
The Forbes Midas List Alum, who can be a partner of the Founders Fund – what the round led with an investment of 1 billion US dollars has greater than 3% of Anduril. ForbesEstimates that transmit its net assets over 1 billion US dollars. Stephens and Anduril rejected an opinion.
The booming investor appetite for military startups contributed to creating Stephens the youngest participant in a gaggle of billionaires who built the assets that sold weapons to the federal government. His Anduril co -founder Palmer Luckey is value 3.6 billion US dollars, Forbes It is estimated that Alex Karp, co -founder and CEO of the military software company Palantir, is 11.9 billion US dollars.
Since the beginning in 2017, Anduril has been on the forefront of a brand new generation of start-ups supported by Venture, the weapons, drones and software for the military manufacture-a ecosystem that’s increasingly being accepted by the Trump administration. Last month anduril appeared As the leader along with SpaceX and Palantir, a weapon system for Trump’s proposed Golden Dome for America plan of 175 billion US dollars, which goals to combat the rocket threats.
Stephens has taken an atypical path to develop into a silicon Valley billionaire. After stays in several political offices and the intelligence group, he was a former employed in Palantir, who got here from Peter Thiel. The famous investor convinced him in 2014 as a partner to hitch the Founders Fund. There he met Luckey during a retreat organized by the investment company, and the 2 developed the thought behind Anduril: Application of a technique for Silicon Valley for military business.
At Founders Fund, Stephens also supported other defense technology firms, including Gecko Robotics (estimated Over 600 million dollars) What hardware and software to guard the defense infrastructure and the Varda Space Industries (Varda Space Industries (Rated more as 500 million US dollars) that tests medication and produces things like fiber optic cables in space. He also led the series to a financing round within the startup Flexport of the Supply Chain Logistics (most recently appreciated at 8 billion US dollars). This “check that I wrote was perhaps the best”, anduril, he said beforehand Forbes.
Beyond Anduril and Founders Fund, Stephens, who was classified in nineteenth place within the 2025 Midas list, can be the co-founder of Sol, a startup glasses with lentils in Kindle style for “Immersive Reading”, which is last Increased seed financing Round led by YC Combinator Chief Garry Tan in 2023.
Stephens, who previously worked on President Donald Trump’s transition team in his first term in office, was also taken under consideration For a task of the Senior Defense Department this yr, nevertheless it didn’t come about (citing a source, semafor before reported that some administrative officers were concerned about Stephen’s investments; Stephens rejected it to make a comment right now).
In Anduril, who achieved sales of $ 1 billion last yr, Stephens strives to scale the production of his military products. The company, which sells drones, augmented reality helmets, sensors and software to attach them, collected $ 1.5 billion last yr to construct a factory in Ohio with the name Arsenal-1 to quickly scale its production of air and maritime drones. And up to now month, Anduril announced that it could work with Meta to make a AI-attacked headset for the military.
The fresh funds of two.5 billion US dollars, one round of series G Forbes Last week.
