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An Arms Dealer Joins Silicon Valley’s Military Boom
For years, Will Somerindyke sold weapons of war around the world: artillery shells to Ukraine, grenades to U.S.-backed rebels in Syria. With relationships with dozens of top military buyers, he quickly turned his company Regulus Global into one of America’s major international arms dealers. Now, as Silicon Valley investors swarm to back multi-billion dollar defense startups with increasing fervor, Somerindyke is looking to make the jump from munitions middleman to manufacturer. He’s been quietly working on Union, a new venture-backed startup he claims will modernize ammunition factories with autonomous robotics and precision machining. “I’ve been through a lot in 18 years in this space,” Somerindyke told Forbes. “If Union does its job correctly, we will be building millions of square feet of facilities with the ability to make a wide range of defense products.” Union, which Somerindyke leads as CEO, appears to have made a solid start. In April it secured a massive $50 million seed funding round led by Bravo Victor Venture Capital, or BVVC. Other investors include Silent Ventures, IronGate, and RKKVC, a Poland-based single-family office. It plans to open its first artillery shell factory in Texas next month. And it recently secured a contract to sell those shells, which, if fulfilled, could bring in up to $225 million, according to Somerindyke. But instead of approaching the problem with old-school manufacturing, Somerindyke and Musselman, who met more than a decade ago through a program for veterans, saw an opportunity to modernize weapons manufacturing, are using Silicon Valley software talent to implement autonomous systems. Since incorporating in October, Union has hired a suite of engineers from Tesla, SpaceX and Anduril....