Palmer Luckey, Founder @ Oculus VR Andutil Industries, during day two of Collision 2019 at Enercare Center in Toronto, Canada.
Stephen McCarthy | Sportsfile | Getty Images
Meta and Anduril, the defense-tech startup founded by Palmer Luckey, announced Thursday that they’ve formed a partnership to create virtual and augmented reality devices intended for use by the U.S. army.
The partnership represents a major step by Meta to supply cutting-edge technology to the government in addition to working once again with Luckey, who sold his Oculus VR startup to the social media company for $2 billion in 2014.
Luckey and Meta had an acrimonious split, with the Anduril founder telling CNBC in 2019 that he “got fired” from the company formerly known as Facebook “for no reason at all,” suggesting that a $10,000 donation to a pro-Donald Trump group ahead of the 2016 U.S. election could have contributed to the decision.
Meta has also been pitching its open-source Llama family of AI models to government agencies and in November said it would make the those tools available to government units “working on defense and national security applications, and private sector partners supporting their work.”
“Meta has spent the last decade building AI and AR to enable the computing platform of the future,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. “We’re proud to partner with Anduril to help bring these technologies to the American service members that protect our interests at home and abroad.”
Meta and Anduril have placed a joint bid on an Army contract for VR devices that is worth up to $100 million, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. The two companies are working on EagleEye, a system that carries sensors that enhance soldiers’ hearing and vision, according to the report. Meta and Anduril will move forward on their partnership whether or not they win the Army contract, per the Journal.
The two companies pitched their partnership as helping the U.S. maintain a “technical edge” while aiding national security and saving the military “billions of dollars by utilizing high-performance components and technology originally built for commercial use.”
“I am glad to be working with Meta once again.” Luckey said in a statement. “Of all the areas where dual-use technology can make a difference for America, this is the one I am most excited about.”
Anduril also announced in December that it partnered with OpenAI on an artificial-intelligence initiative related to “national security missions.”
The logos of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether outside a cryptocurrency exchange in Istanbul, Turkey, on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024.
David Lombeida | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The crypto market’s bullishness may be tipping into speculative frenzy, if the latest MicroStrategy-style copycat is any indication.
On Monday, a little-known Canadian vape company saw its stock surge on plans to enter the crypto treasury game – but this time with Binance Coin (BNB), the fourth largest cryptocurrency by market cap, excluding the dollar-pegged stablecoin Tether (USDT), according to CoinGecko.
Shares of CEA Industries, which trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker VAPE, rocketed more than 800% at one point after the company announced its plans. CEA, along with investment firm 10X Capital and YZi Labs, said it would offer a $500 million private placement to raise proceeds to buy Binance Coin for its corporate treasury. Shares ended the session up nearly 550%, giving the company a market cap of about $48 million.
Given the more crypto-friendly regulatory environment this year, more public companies have adopted the MicroStrategy playbook of using debt financing and equity sales to buy bitcoin to hold on their balance sheet to try to increase shareholder returns, pushing bitcoin to new records.
Now, with the S&P 500 trading at new records, the resurgence of meme mania and a pro-crypto White House supporting the crypto industry, investors are looking further out on the risk spectrum of crypto hoping for bigger gains.
In recent months, investors have rotated out of bitcoin and into ether, which led to a burst of companies seeking a similar treasury strategy around ether. SharpLink Gaming, whose board is chaired by Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin, was one of the first to make the move. Other companies like DeFi Development Corp, renamed from Janover, are making similar moves around Solana.
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In the suit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Florida, the company accused the merchants of selling “inferior imitations” of Trump-branded products on several online marketplaces, including Amazon, Walmart and eBay.
The Trump Organization company, which is owned by Trump, sells a variety of branded merchandise through its website, including a gold T1 smartphone. The Trump Organization alleges the online merchants didn’t license its trademarks and weren’t authorized resellers of genuine merchandise.
“By selling counterfeit products that purport to be genuine and authorized products using the TRUMP trademarks, defendants cause confusion and deception in the marketplace,” the complaint says.
Coffee mugs, hats, t-shirts and sweatshirts emblazoned with “Trump,” “Trump 2028,” and American flags were among the examples of alleged knockoffs listed in the suit.
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The Trump Organization intends to file a motion to seal an exhibit listing the merchants’ identities, according to the complaint.
The company is seeking to prevent the merchants from using Trump trademarks. It also asks a judge to compel Amazon and other online marketplaces to destroy the alleged counterfeit goods and close the merchants’ selling accounts.
Representatives from Amazon, Walmart and eBay didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Amazon, Walmart and eBay all operate thriving online marketplaces that allow third-party businesses to list and sell goods. The companies have all battled issues in the past around the sale of inauthentic or unsafe goods on their platforms.
Amazon sellers looked to cash in on Trump’s return to the White House earlier this year.
Sales of Trump-branded merchandise, including calendars, toilet paper and greeting cards, spiked in January, according to e-commerce marketing company Omnisend, which collected its data from seller software provider JungleScout.
In the lead-up to last year’s election, Amazon sellers made $140 million from Trump-related merchandise and $26 million from products promoting presidential candidate and former Vice President Kamala Harris, Omnisend found.
The Texas-based space company said in an updated prospectus Monday that it’s planning to sell about 16.2 million shares. The offering could raise up to $631.8 million.
Earlier this month, Firefly filed its plans to go public on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “FLY.”
Its debut comes amid a renewed push in the space race, as billionaire-led companies such as Elon Musk‘s SpaceX funnel more money into space activities and startups try their luck at the public markets.
Space tech firm Voyager went public in June, while reusable rocket developer Innovative Rocket Technologies said it plans to debut through a $400 million special purpose acquisition company merger.
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Firefly’s public market launch also coincides with a revival in IPO activity as debilitating interest rates and an overhang from President Donald Trump‘s tariff plans begin to clear. Design software company Figma is slated to go public this week after raising its range.
Firefly makes rockets, space tugs and lunar landers, including satellite launching rockets known as Alpha. At the end of March, the company reported a sixfold jump in revenue from $8.3 million a year ago to $55.9 million.
The company also reported a net loss of about $60.1 million, up from a loss of $52.8 million a year ago, and said its backlog totaled about $1.1 billion.
Some of Firefly’s major backers include AE Industrial Partners, which led an early investing round in the company. Defense contractor Northrop Grumman invested $50 million in the startup this May, and Firefly says it has collaborated with Lockheed Martin, L3Harris and NASA.