Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Thursday, July 10th.

Today on Forbes, an arms dealer joined Silicon Valley's military boom.

For years, Will Samarindyke sold weapons of war around the world, artillery shells to Ukraine,

grenades to U.S.-backed rebels in Syria. With relationships with dozens of top

military buyers, he quickly turned his company, Regulus Global, into one of America's major

international arms dealers. Now, as Silicon Valley investors swarm to back multi-million

dollar defense startups with increasing fervor, Samarindyke is looking

to make the jump from munitions middleman to manufacturer.

He's been quietly working on Union, a new venture-backed startup he claims will modernize

ammunition factories with autonomous robotics and precision machining.

Samarindike told Forbes, quote,

I've been through a lot in 18 years in this space.

If Union does its job correctly,

we will be building millions of square feet of facilities

with the ability to make a wide range of defense products.

Union, which Samarindike leads as CEO,

appears to have made a solid start.

In April, it secured a massive $50 million seed funding round, led by Bravo Victor Venture Capital, or BVVC.

Other investors include Silent Ventures, Iron Gate, and RKKVC, a Poland-based single-family office.

It plans to open its first artillery shell factory in Texas this summer,

and it recently secured a contract to sell those shells,

which, if fulfilled, could bring in up to $225 million, according to Samarindyke.

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