Early investors in Anduril have been getting a lot of reachouts from people clamoring to snap up their shares.
Jackson Moses, founder and managing partner of defense-focused firm Silent Ventures, “started getting pinged left and right” about two years ago on the secondary market to sell his interest in Anduril, which he first invested in in 2021. His phone started ringing more over the past year and rang even more in the past few months.
“The last six months have been pretty crazy,” he told BI. “Every reputable family office and institution wants to know, how can I buy this?”
Moses was one of five VCs, and brokers BI spoke with who described intense demand but limited supply for secondary shares of Anduril, the defense tech startup founded in 2017 by Palmer Luckey, a 32-year-old entrepreneur with a penchant for mullets and colorful Hawaiian shirts.
Unlike stock in public companies like Amazon or Google, which anyone can instantly buy or sell, trading shares of private companies is much more opaque, requiring middlemen and weeks of time to finalize. Sellers are usually employees or early investors looking to cash out, while buyers include VCs, family offices, and hedge funds.
“Everyone is fighting to get shares now,” said a secondary broker who declined to be identified for fear of alienating Anduril. “There’s a frenzy to get shares.”
In the past six months, Anduril has climbed from fifth to fourth on the rankings of companies with the most order volume (behind only SpaceX, ByteDance, and OpenAI) on Caplight, a private market exchange for shares of startups.
According to Caplight, buyers are willing to buy Anduril shares at $56.67 per share, which is an implied valuation of $36.3 billion, a 63% increase over the past six months. The company last raised financing last summer at a valuation of $14 billion, or $21.74 per share, per Caplight.
A CNBC report that Anduril was in talks to double the company’s valuation to $28 billion led to more interest, according to Greg Martin, managing director and co-founder of Rainmaker Securities, a secondary platform.
“After we started hearing about the new round, we started to see new bids come in,” Martin said. “I don’t have anything to add to CNBC’s reporting,” said an Anduril spokesperson.
Anduril shares are hard to find
With all that demand, few deals are actually being completed because, like many private companies, Anduril tightly controls its own stock.
“Anduril’s common stock is subject to transfer restrictions, and we don’t allow secondary transactions,” explained the Anduril spokesperson.
Some buyers have been skirting the company’s rules by buying stock in special-purpose vehicles (SPVs), a financial structure that allows a group of investors to pool their funds, that operate in a gray area.
Sydecar, an SPV and fund administration platform, saw greater volume in Anduril SPV deals transacted by organizers on its platform in the first quarter of 2025 than it did all of last year, according to Sydecar chief operating officer Shriram Bhashyam.
Driving the demand is a perfect storm of Anduril signing lucrative contracts, a charismatic founder, and a favorable climate for defense tech startups under the Trump administration, according to Martin.
“I think all of those roll up nicely into a really good story, and the financials are there behind it,” said Martin. “They have amazing backers. So there’s a lot to like about the company.”
Other defense startups — such as Armada, Castelion, Hadrian, Helsing, and Saronic — are also seeing strong demand, according to Moses, who holds those companies in his portfolio.
“I think it’s likely a demand function because defense tech is finally an obvious and, importantly, broadly accepted investment opportunity set,” Moses said of increased interest in defense tech, especially on the secondary market. “Geopolitical instability, market volatility, political uncertainty — these are macro factors we all experience daily.”
Not all VCs are as enamored by Anduril. One defense tech VC who asked to remain anonymous for fear of alienating Anduril said he was recently offered shares at a $33 billion valuation. He passed because he thought the price was too high.
But that VC was very much in the minority of those BI spoke with.
“We get hit up every day to sell Anduril, but we’re not,” Neil Keegan, co-managing partner and CEO of defense-tech firm Marlinspike, which first invested in 2022. “Even if you can get it approved by the company, we’re not selling.”
