糖心视频

Update 10/07/2019: This news was confirmed by Anduril Industries on Thursday, October 3.聽

, a defense company founded by ex-Facebook VR executive , is working to be on the border of innovation. Literally.

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The company is working to create a virtual border wall with its surveillance technology for government use – and a16z just invested in it, valuing it at $1 billion post-money, . Anduril did not immediately respond for comment regarding the new, reported financing round.

The Orange, California-based company has to date for its artificial intelligence technology. Investors beyond a16z include , , and .

The latter investor was part of Anduril鈥檚 DNA earlier than the company鈥檚 formation, quite literally. , which Luckey started in 2012, was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for . The founder was eventually ousted from the social media company that he funded an anti-Hillary Clinton, pro-Trump organization with ties to racism.

But Oculus gave Luckey insight on the commercial aspect of augmented reality and virtual reality, and led Anduril鈥檚 Series B. The size of that round was undisclosed.

Anduril states on its website that it 鈥渟elf-funds鈥� all of its development, helping it launch software speedier than if it went through the government-first development process.

But Anduril was not the only late-stage round that a16z was involved with this week.

Samsara

Earlier this week , a company focused on industrial IoT sensors, blending hardware and software together, . The new capital values the four-year-old startup at $6.3 billion, according to .

a16z, which led the company鈥檚 and co-led its put money in the new round. and led Samsara鈥檚 newest round, which included more capital from a16z and .

The firm鈥檚 new $6.3 billion valuation is sharply higher than its preceding $3.6 billion rally. In less than a year, therefore, Samsara managed to grow its value by 75 percent. Such sharp rallies in value among high-growth private companies are not rare in 2019, but to see a company as highly-valued as Samsara add $2.7 billion to its worth in ten months is notable.

Also this quarter, a16z has invested in , the , , FlyHomes, Singularity 6, Hipcamp, Freenome, and Substack, among others. The investor currently participates in about 20 known investments per quarter.

Finally

To close, it seems that the unicorn era of booming valuations with big checks to match is still on a spree. And a diverse one at that.

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