The venture that fights the Hamas tunnels received millions from Andoril and SpaceX executives

The startup develops engineering vehicles and mining machines for combating terrorist tunnels and underground military bases. The Israeli company Traysar, which also employs graduates of Elon Musk’s Boring Company, has announced that it has raised $25 million from some of Endoril’s executives, senior engineers at SpaceX, and Kraft Ventures of Trump’s former AI advisor David Sachs. This is alongside the Lux Capital fund – a vigorous investor in the Israeli defense tech industry, and Avi Eyal’s Israeli Entree fund. The value of the company was not disclosed, but according to the estimate it is 100 million dollars.

Mechanism for blasting tunnels

Is Lucky himself among the investors? The company does not confirm the issue, but from what Lucky has said on several occasions it can be understood that he is the almost single prominent voice in the American defense industry today calling for budgets to be invested in underground warfare. Last year, Palmer said that he believes that “the underground brokerage will be a significant space, but no one agrees with me, and every time I talk about it I sound like a crazy person to people.” In addition to Lucky, CEO Brian Schimpf, chairman Trey Stevens, chief operating officer Matt Grimm and executive Joseph Chen may be among the investors.

The Israeli company was revealed for the first time last week at an industrial conference in Detroit, it developed a kind of tiny D9-like bulldozer designed for the demolition and dismantling of terrorist tunnels with a hydraulic drill and a mechanism for inserting explosives into the tunnel walls. The system has already been tested in terror tunnels in Gaza and is also intended for underground smuggling tunnels between Mexico and the USA. In addition, the company revealed plans to develop a cylindrical TBM-like mining machine designed to reach deep into bases such as in Iran or headquarters and warehouses of armies such as Russia, China and North Korea.

The Israeli-American dozen was founded by the Israelis Yadin Sofer, the CEO, a serial entrepreneur who previously sold the fintech company Xperiti to Ipsos and was one of the founders of the TED community in Israel; the director of technological systems Asher Katz, who served in a secret unit to locate tunnels in the land arm; and Gilad Adin, who was formerly the commander of 8200 and is better known as the former CEO of News 10 and a member of the Broadcasting Authority.

Yadin Sofer, who has been living in Austin, Texas for the past decade, explains that the last war in Iran was a wake-up call to Western countries, and the United States in particular, to treat underground warfare as a strategic issue. “The attack on the nuclear sites in Iran by the American bombers had the opposite effect,” Sofer tells Globes. Deep in the ground.”

However, while in Israel they fully understand the threat that lies in terrorist tunnels and bases that dig deep into the ground – the US does not lead a clear policy on this issue. With the exception of a dozen, there are no start-up or growth companies that are focused on underground warfare, with the exception of departments in large defense equipment companies, such as Boeing.

Want to reach Trump

Sofer, who lives in Texas, received advice from an expert to contact another company that operates not far from there, the “Boring Company”, Elon Musk’s mining company that operates as a division of SpaceX and is engaged in mining transportation tunnels. The appeal did not result in business cooperation, but ignited enthusiasm among some of the company’s senior engineers who became investors – and convinced one of the Boring Company veterans, Greg Johnson, to join the ranks of Dozen as chief engineer. They were joined as co-founder and manager of the company’s business area by Gilad Adin, who was a past participant in the TED lecture conferences led by a writer in Israel. The two have known each other years before as family: Sofer is Adin’s father-in-law.

The great challenge, Sofer says, is not necessarily technological: mining machines and technologies are abundant, including in the extensive US mining industry. The challenge lies in market education and the development of systems that will suit the security needs of the US first and foremost. “The United States possesses the most sophisticated military technology in the world, but throughout its 250 years of history, it has always acted reactively towards the underground: whether it is in the First World War, in the tunnels of Vietnam, or in the recent operations in Iran,” says Sofer. ground If when we started they raised an eyebrow at us – today that tone has changed, suddenly they say about us: these people may not be completely crazy.”

The company was already established in 2024 but had difficulty raising investors before owning the prototype. After raising several million dollars from friends and family, she set up a system that was tested together with MFA in tunnels in Gaza and was successful. “This project created a turning point in the discourse on the field and from a project that was considered science fiction, it became very realistic – suddenly people understood what we were talking about. The ball started rolling and within months we turned from a company whose vision is difficult to sell to a company that has to respond negatively to many investors.”

The company already operates tiny engineering vehicles in Israel’s border tunnels, but the biggest potential, as far as it is concerned, is the American defense industry. “No one will invest in a dozen because Israel suffers from the tunnels – it has to come from a place of needing to hit underground facilities in Iran, of the ability to win a battle in Russia or North Korea, or China – which already announced three years ago that its combat strategy would be integrated deep into the ground.”