The State Department's $1.98 billion approval puts Anduril's electronic and kinetic drone defenses in the Gulf days after an Iranian drone hit Kuwait's main airport.
At Operation Jailbreak, six firms wired a radar 'Hunter' and a gun-armed 'Killer' into one autonomous counter-drone kill chain in under a week, the Army's argument that it can integrate at software speed.
The Pentagon's Crucible 2 turns a $54.6 billion autonomy budget line into a contracted shoot-off, and the 25-firm roster shows who the Pentagon is betting on to fly the swarms.
Defense-tech venture funding hit a record $14.6 billion in the first five months of 2026, per Crunchbase. The companies drawing the biggest checks build what Ukraine's front increasingly runs on: cheap, mass-produced autonomy.
Elbit America has pulled Anduril onto its SIGMA bid for the U.S. Army's self-propelled howitzer contest, a sign the program could turn on autonomy and networking as much as on the cannon.