The US industrial base saw massive build-up during WWII, with many considering this capability to be a key turning point in winning the war. That capability also enabled the US to become responsible for 40% of global manufacturing by the 1950s. But not much has changed about aerospace and defense manufacturing since then.
The US defense industrial base is dependent on thousands of “mom and pop” machine shops, representing more than $60 billion of spend. But the age of the average machine shop operator is 63 years old. As a generation of these operators retire we could see a collapse of the industrial base in the US.
And this collapse couldn’t come at a worse time. We’re in the midst of both a Space Race 2.0 and an industrial boom that hasn’t been seen in decades. Funding for space startups in 2023 was $17.9 billion, with the total value of space companies exceeding $4 trillion. With SpaceX’s enabling innovation around reusable rockets, the cost of launches has plummeted. That has created a massive opportunity for dozens of industrial categories to operate more in space.
But with the explosion in demand for precision manufacturing from space, aerospace, and defense, the existing industrial base just doesn’t have the flexibility to meet it.
That’s where Hadrian comes in. Hadrian is a manufacturing company that has built vertically integrated technology for high-precision manufacturing, with modules including quoting, programming, machining, and inspection. Hadrian’s goal is to build factories to accelerate the pace of American manufacturing by delivering parts in ”less time, on time.” The way they do this is by building a semi-automated approach to manufacturing, effectively building “five software companies and a robotics company” internally.
Over the last month, Contrary Research has gone deep on Hadrian’s business. This includes a 12K+ word deep dive on the company’s evolution as well as an hour-long conversation with Chris Power, CEO and founder of Hadrian.
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