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- Ares Industries wants to make smaller and cheaper anti-ship cruise missiles.
- YC partner Jared Friedman says the company could do for missiles what SpaceX did for rockets.
- Friedman says the missile startup's work could be critical if China were to wage war on Taiwan.
Startup accelerator Y Combinator is backing its first weapons startup — a firm that says it can make missiles smaller and cheaper than its competitors.
"Ares is building a new class of anti-ship cruise missiles. We are going to deliver the capabilities that the DoD wants in a form factor that's 10x smaller and 10x cheaper," Ares Industries' cofounders Devan Plantamura and Alex Tseng wrote in a post on the YC website.
The pair had worked in other defense startups before teaming up to found Areas Industries in May this year.
Ares Industries, YC partner Jared Friedman said, could prove critical if China attacks Taiwan.
"While the world is focused on conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, the world is much closer to a war in the Taiwan Strait than most people realize," Friedman wrote in an X post on August 20.
"In a war with Taiwan, we would fire thousands of anti-ship missiles a week, and our stockpiles would run out in days. The ability to produce enough missiles to be competitive is the best way to deter a war," he continued.
