Investors Are in a ‘Frenzy’ to Buy Secondary Shares in Anduril

Early traders in Anduril have been getting a variety of reachouts from folks clamoring to snap up their shares.

Jackson Moses, founder and managing companion of defense-focused agency Silent Ventures, “began getting pinged left and proper” about two years in the past on the secondary market to promote his curiosity in Anduril, which he first invested in in 2021. His cellphone began ringing extra over the previous yr and rang much more previously few months.

“The final six months have been fairly loopy,” he advised BI. “Each respected household workplace and establishment needs to know, how can I purchase this?”

Moses was certainly one of 5 VCs, and brokers BI spoke with who described intense demand however restricted provide for secondary shares of Anduril, the protection tech startup based in 2017 by Palmer Luckey, a 32-year-old entrepreneur with a penchant for mullets and colourful Hawaiian shirts.

Not like inventory in public corporations like Amazon or Google, which anybody can immediately purchase or promote, buying and selling shares of personal corporations is far more opaque, requiring middlemen and weeks of time to finalize. Sellers are often workers or early traders seeking to money out, whereas consumers embody VCs, household places of work, and hedge funds.

“Everyone seems to be preventing to get shares now,” stated a secondary dealer who declined to be recognized for concern of alienating Anduril. “There is a frenzy to get shares.”

Up to now six months, Anduril has climbed from fifth to fourth on the rankings of corporations with essentially the most order quantity (behind solely SpaceX, ByteDance, and OpenAI) on Caplight, a non-public market trade for shares of startups.

In accordance with Caplight, consumers are prepared to purchase Anduril shares at $56.67 per share, which is an implied valuation of $36.3 billion, a 63% improve over the previous six months. The corporate final raised financing final summer season at a valuation of $14 billion, or $21.74 per share, per Caplight.

A CNBC report that Anduril was in talks to double the corporate’s valuation to $28 billion led to extra curiosity, based on Greg Martin, managing director and co-founder of Rainmaker Securities, a secondary platform.

“After we began listening to concerning the new spherical, we began to see new bids are available in,” Martin stated. “I haven’t got something so as to add to CNBC’s reporting,” stated an Anduril spokesperson.

Anduril shares are onerous to search out

With all that demand, few offers are literally being accomplished as a result of, like many non-public corporations, Anduril tightly controls its personal inventory.

“Anduril’s frequent inventory is topic to switch restrictions, and we do not permit secondary transactions,” defined the Anduril spokesperson.

Some consumers have been skirting the corporate’s guidelines by shopping for inventory in special-purpose automobiles (SPVs), a monetary construction that permits a gaggle of traders to pool their funds, that function in a grey space.

Sydecar, an SPV and fund administration platform, noticed higher quantity in Anduril SPV offers transacted by organizers on its platform within the first quarter of 2025 than it did all of final yr, based on Sydecar chief working officer Shriram Bhashyam.

Driving the demand is an ideal storm of Anduril signing profitable contracts, a charismatic founder, and a positive local weather for protection tech startups beneath the Trump administration, based on Martin.

“I feel all of these roll up properly into a extremely good story, and the financials are there behind it,” stated Martin. “They’ve wonderful backers. So there’s rather a lot to love concerning the firm.”

Different protection startups — corresponding to Armada, Castelion, Hadrian, Helsing, and Saronic — are additionally seeing sturdy demand, based on Moses, who holds these corporations in his portfolio.

“I feel it is possible a requirement operate as a result of protection tech is lastly an apparent and, importantly, broadly accepted funding alternative set,” Moses stated of elevated curiosity in protection tech, particularly on the secondary market. “Geopolitical instability, market volatility, political uncertainty — these are macro components all of us expertise every day.”

Not all VCs are as enamored by Anduril. One protection tech VC who requested to stay nameless for concern of alienating Anduril stated he was not too long ago provided shares at a $33 billion valuation. He handed as a result of he thought the value was too excessive.

However that VC was very a lot within the minority of these BI spoke with.

“We get hit up every single day to promote Anduril, however we’re not,” Neil Keegan, co-managing companion and CEO of defense-tech agency Marlinspike, which first invested in 2022. “Even when you may get it authorised by the corporate, we’re not promoting.”