Anduril CEO Brian Shimp said there is no need for defense technology companies to rush to go public given current market conditions.
“We define a successful IPO as investors receiving a substantial return over the three years after the stock actually goes public,” Schimp told CNBC’s Julia Boorstin at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference on Thursday. “The middle of a hype cycle is a bad time to do it. So there’s no need to rush out.”
Defense technology companies like Anduril are riding a surge in demand for their products and services, fueled by President Donald Trump’s desire to reindustrialize the military. Spending on this technology is at an all-time high, with the defense budget expected to reach $1.5 trillion.
Still, the market for technology-related initial public offerings has remained relatively subdued since then. space x Record provided last month. Elon Musk’s space and artificial intelligence company’s stock closed at a high of $201.80 on its third day of trading, but has since lost about a quarter of its value and now trades just above its opening price of $150.
Meanwhile, AI model leaders OpenAI and Anthropic have both secretly filed to go public, but neither has set an IPO schedule. Some investors are increasingly skeptical that the public market will accept the companies’ current valuations of nearly $1 trillion.
Anduril, which makes drones and AI-powered weapons, doubled its valuation to $61 billion in May, making it one of the most valuable private technology companies. Shimp said at the time that the company would “aggressively” invest in expanding U.S. defense systems.
Defense technology company Shield AI and autonomous ship maker Saronic also closed large funding rounds earlier this year.
But that’s not necessarily a good thing, Shimp says.
“We’re seeing very high expectations for future growth and a variety of other things,” he said. “I’m not sure the market is pricing it particularly reasonably at this point.”
As Anduril grows in size, there are growing questions about when its shares will finally hit the public market. Founder Palmer Lackey said he would “definitely” pursue an IPO, but he has not set a target.
“I think a lot of companies are moving into overvaluation territory in a dangerous way that could backfire,” Schimpf said.
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