Anduril Industries, a defense technology startup that has raised more than $4 billion since its founding in 2017, is leasing a large office in Waltham as it continues its growth.
The company, which is headquartered in Orange County, Calif., and cofounded by Oculus Rift inventor Palmer Luckey, will take 162,000 square feet at 1050 Winter St. That’s roughly four times the size of the space it currently occupies for Greater Boston operations, which includes locations on Hartwell Avenue in Lexington and on Howard Street in Quincy.
“Waltham is centrally located for talent,’’ an Anduril spokesperson told the Globe in an email on Wednesday.
The Winter Street building, which is owned by office giant BXP, had been previously slated for conversion to life-science space, executives with the Boston-based landlord said in a call with analysts Wednesday. But, they said, an unnamed “defense technology company’’ — later confirmed to be Anduril — was interested in taking the entire building in a 15-year lease.
“We made the decision to pivot back to office,’’ BXP president Doug Linde said. They expect the building will be up and running later this year.
The deal is a bright spot in what’s been a gloomy run for the office market along Route 128, where office vacancy rates in the first quarter reached “a new historic high of 22.2 percent,’’ according to Newmark research.
For its part, Anduril is growing quickly. It has 831 active job postings, is planning a 4,000-job advanced manufacturing plant in Ohio, and has raised some $4.34 billion since its founding in 2017, according to Pitchbook. It has since developed hardware products such as autonomous fighter jets for the US Air Force, autonomous submarines for the Australian Navy, and counter-drone technology. But its core business is an AI platform that, as Luckey said in an April TED talk, “lets us deploy millions of weapons without risking millions of lives.’’
“We will save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars a year by making tens of billions of dollars a year,’’ Luckey said, quoting Anduril’s first pitch deck.
“Now the ethical implications of AI in warfare are serious, but here’s the truth: If the United States doesn’t lead in this space, authoritarian regimes will,’’ Luckey said. “And they won’t be concerned with our ethical norms.’’
Luckey spoke of being “fired from Facebook after donating $9,000 to the wrong political candidate.’’ The Wall Street Journal in 2018 reported Luckey donated to an anti-Clinton group during the 2016 presidential election.
Reuters in April reported Anduril is partnering with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Palantir, a software company cofounded by Peter Thiel, to develop part of President Trump’s “Golden Dome’’ missile shield. Thiel’s Founders Fund was an early investor in Anduril.
Continued growth in the defense and technology space, of course, could ultimately lead to future growth for Anduril in the Washington, D.C. area — where BXP is also a major landlord. The company has 70 jobs posted in D.C. and Northern Virginia.
Locally, Anduril has existing facilities in Lexington and Quincy, though at least one job post indicates the Quincy facility will be based there until the fourth quarter, before moving to Quonset Point, R.I.
Catherine Carlock can be reached at catherine.carlock@globe.com. Follow her @bycathcarlock.