Lux Capital $1.5B Ninth Fund: Betting Big on the Future of Defense and AI
Lux Capital closes its largest fund ever at $1.5 billion for defense and frontier tech, despite a 10-year low in VC activity. Analyzing the rise of Anduril and AI investments.
Venture capital is freezing, but Lux Capital is on fire. Despite 2025 marking a 10-year low for new VC fundraising, the firm has just closed its largest fund in history—a massive $1.5 billion vehicle dedicated to frontier science and defense technology.
Why LPs are Backing the Lux Capital $1.5B Ninth Fund
It's not hard to see why limited partners are doubling down on Lux Capital. The firm was betting on Defense Tech long before it was considered 'cool' or necessary. They were seed investors in Anduril, now valued at $30.5 billion, and Applied Intuition, which recently secured major Pentagon contracts with a $15 billion valuation. Lux's ability to spot geopolitical shifts before they happen has turned them into an industry powerhouse.
Their track record in AI is equally impressive. Long before the post-ChatGPT hype, Lux was backing the foundations of the industry, including Hugging Face and Runway AI. Their exit from MosaicML, which sold to Databricks for $1.3 billion in 2023, served as a massive win for their earlier funds. With significant exits in healthcare robotics and drug discovery, Lux now manages over $7 billion in total assets.
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