Hadrian Raises $36 Million to Make Autonomous Aerospace Factories

Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College and previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

Hadrian Raises $36 Million to Make Autonomous Aerospace Factories
Relativity Space Reportedly Scores a $500M investment, valuing the company at $3.2B.

Hadrian Automation, a startup developing automated manufacturing plants for the aerospace and defense industries in the Los Angeles area, has raised $36.4 million in new funding, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Hadrian, which is based in San Francisco but has operations in Hawthorne, secured the funding from a total of 28 different investors, according to the SEC filing. The identities of those investors were not disclosed. The startup previously raised a $9.5 million seed round last spring from the likes of Lux Capital, Founders Fund, and Construct Capital.


Hadrian aims to create highly efficient, completely automated factories that produce parts for aerospace applications including rockets, drones, satellites, and jets. Inspired by SpaceX founder Elon Musk—who once said of Tesla that “The factory is the product”—Hadrian founder and CEO Christopher Power told TechCrunch last year that he believes the space industry needs to overhaul its manufacturing setup if it wants to reach its full growth potential.

“If you look at the sheer number of people that we need to train and hire on our new technology and new systems, that people problem and that training problem is part of growing our business,” Power said. He noted that it would be faster and cheaper for firms to produce precision space parts if they invested in automated factories.

Automated aerospace manufacturing is now on the rise, with the likes of Long Beach-based firms Relativity Space and Rocket Lab deploying 3D printing to build rockets. Hadrian believes it can court some of these newer space players to use its robot-staffed factories.

Representatives for Hadrian declined to comment on the raise.

Hadrian’s team includes alumni from aerospace heavyweights like Lockheed Martin and SpaceX. Its head of quality assurance, Matthew Mueller, held several senior manufacturing roles at SpaceX over nearly three years. It also hired former Oculus head of mechatronics Simon Hallam as its head of engineering in June, and appears likely to use part of this funding to continue expanding its small team. As of last April, the startup reported a staff of eight people including Power, and its website indicates that it is actively hiring for jobs in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

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Astrolab's New SpaceX-backed Rover Could Change Space Exploration Forever

Lon Harris
Lon Harris is a contributor to dot.LA. His work has also appeared on ScreenJunkies, RottenTomatoes and Inside Streaming.
Astrolab's New SpaceX-backed Rover Could Change Space Exploration Forever
Photo by Samson Amore

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Local Los Angeles-area startup Astrolab Inc. has designed a new lunar vehicle called FLEX, short for Flexible Logistics and Exploration Rover. About the size of a Jeep Wrangler, FLEX is designed to move cargo around the surface of the moon on assignment. It’s a bit larger than NASA’s Mars rovers, like Perseverance, but as it’s designed for transport and mobility rather than precision measurement, it can travel much faster, at speeds of up to 15 miles per hour across the lunar surface.

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Meet the Creator Economy’s Version of LinkedIn

Kristin Snyder

Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.

Meet the Creator Economy’s Version of LinkedIn
Creatorland

This is the web version of dot.LA’s daily newsletter. Sign up to get the latest news on Southern California’s tech, startup and venture capital scene.

LinkedIn hasn’t caught on with Gen Z—in fact, 96% rarely use their existing account.

Considering 25% of young people want to be full-time content creators and most influencers aren’t active on LinkedIn, traditional networking sites aren’t likely to meet these needs.

Enter CreatorLand.

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This Week in ‘Raises’: Total Network Services Gains $9M, Autio Secures $5.9M

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

This Week in ‘Raises’: Total Network Services Gains $9M, Autio Secures $5.9M
This Week in ‘Raises’:

It has been a slow week in funding, but a local decentralized computing network managed to land $9 million to accelerate deployment of its new product called Universal Communication Identifier (UCID™). Another local company that secured capital included Kevin Costner’s location-based audio storytelling platform and the funding will go toward expanding the app’s content library and expanding into additional regions in the United States.

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