Ethan Thornton’s vision for Mach Industries wooed blue-chip investors Sequoia and Bedrock, but he has struggled to execute, hamstrung by technical challenges, safety hazards and a cavalier approach to leadership. At19 years old, Ethan Thornton had a grand vision for a new company: He’d do away with the U.S.
military’s centuries-long reliance on gunpowder munitions by developing an array of hydrogen-powered weaponry. He named the company Mach Industries and, after dropping out of MIT, began R&D work on an artillery that could be replenished by hydrogen generators deployed on the frontlines, claiming it would give the military a critical battlefield advantage. Investors swarmed over what appeared to be an up and coming defense tech company led by a visionary teenage dropout.
Sequoia’s Shaun Maguire co-led a $5 million seed funding round last summer — the venture firm’s first check issued to a defense company. Three months later, Bedrock’s managing partner Geoff Lewis led a $79 million series A investment, valuing the nascent startup at more than $300 million. But Mach’s giddy financing had been prefaced by a troubling, and near fatal, misstep.
Months earlier, Thornton and another employee were almost killed while testing a Mach weapon. Four former employees with knowledge of the matter told Forbes that Thornton was reaching into a blast chamber surrounding a hydrogen-powered gun when the gas unexpectedly ignited, blowing up the machinery and sending a spray of s.