Anduril Industries and LMI are launching a three-month Rapid Development Pilot aimed at building targeted capabilities for the U.S. Army Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) environment.

The effort will focus on developing and testing "combat-ready" applications designed to be distributed across the Army enterprise through the NGC2 ecosystem.

LMI said the pilot signals a shift in defense capability development, moving away from traditional program-of-record timelines toward continuous, mission-driven cycles intended to accelerate delivery of tools for an evolving battlefield.

The new pilot program comes just days after Anduril announced a Series H Funding round, where it raised $5 billion. The defense technology company’s valuation currently hovers around $61 billion.

Josh Kushner‘s Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz led the round.

‘Future Conflicts Will Demand C2 Ecosystems’

The pilot builds directly on lessons from the Army's Ivy Sting field exercises, where next-generation NGC2 capabilities are tested in real operational environments rather than controlled lab settings. In that context, LMI's SHEPRD platform has already been running inside the NGC2 ecosystem, with Anduril's Lattice Mesh acting as a key enabling layer that allows it to be tested alongside active Army units.

During Ivy Sting 4, LMI "modified and deployed" SHEPRD to an IL6-authorized cloud environment handling Secret classified data in just weeks — a turnaround that would typically take much longer. The company attributes the speed to close, rapid-fire iteration between LMI, Anduril, and the Army, with all sides focused less on process and more on getting mission-relevant capabilities into the field quickly.

LMI CTO Jared Summers added, "What we proved at Ivy Sting is that you can take a capability from concept to deployment in weeks, not months, even in secure environments."

LMI CEO Josh Wilson said, "Future conflicts will demand C2 ecosystems that can leverage hardware and software at the pace of conflict," describing the pilot as an example of moving faster by rewarding outcomes instead of rigid delivery frameworks.

The companies said the pilot will be used to deliver additional applications intended to address operational needs identified by soldiers.

Department Of Defense Deal

Additionally, Anduril signed a framework agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense to scale production of its Barracuda-500M surface-launched cruise missile under the Ground-Launched Low-Cost Containerized Munition program.

The deal calls for at least 3,000 SLB-500M systems to be delivered to the U.S. Army over three years, with production ramping to at least 1,000 units annually and initial deliveries expected in the first half of 2027. Anduril will also supply containerized launch systems, beginning with more than 60 launchers in 2027.

The agreement is intended to rapidly expand access to lower-cost, mass-producible long-range precision strike capabilities, with total quantities subject to increase based on Department of Defense requirements.

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