Former SpaceX engineers’ Castelion raises $1B at $13B valuation to mass-produce hypersonic weapons — TFN

• Castelion raised $1B in Sequence C funding at a $13B valuation.

• JPMorganChase, Andreessen Horowitz, and Carlyle co-led the $800M fairness spherical.

• The startup has $500M in army contracts and targets 2027 for Blackbeard.

Castelion, a Torrance, California-based firm, has closed a $1 billion Sequence C, cut up between $800 million in fairness and a $250 million revolving credit score facility, bringing its whole valuation to $13 billion.

JPMorgan Chase’s Strategic Funding Group, Andreessen Horowitz, and funds managed by Carlyle co-led the fairness spherical, joined by returning backers Lightspeed Enterprise Companions, Lavrock Ventures, Altimeter, Common Catalyst, and Interlagos, in addition to new investor T. Rowe Value Associates. 

“Deterrence is dependent upon unapologetic American energy: extremely succesful weapon techniques that adversaries concern, produced in portions they will’t think about, at a worth taxpayers can afford. There’s a producing renaissance underway, and this spherical turbocharges American manufacturing of Blackbeard,” mentioned Bryon Hargis, Castelion’s co-founder and chief government.

Why the Pentagon is paying up

The spherical lands as Washington worries it has fallen behind China on hypersonic weapons, missiles that fly above Mach 5 and manoeuvre sufficient to dodge current air defences. 

Castelion has booked greater than $500 million in U.S. army contracts over 18 months and has taken Blackbeard from a clean sheet to a Pentagon programme of file in underneath 4 years, with fielding focused for 2027.

“Castelion helps to deal with a vital nationwide safety problem by bringing better pace, agility, and manufacturing capability to the event of next-generation defence applied sciences,” mentioned Todd Combs, who heads the Strategic Funding Group for JPMorganChase’s Safety and Resiliency Initiative. 

Carlyle’s Aaron Hurwitz, a managing director on the agency’s aerospace, defence, and authorities crew, put it extra bluntly: “We view Castelion as a vital asset to nationwide safety, advancing next-gen expertise that strengthens America’s defence industrial base.”

From three SpaceX engineers to a 1,000-acre manufacturing facility

Hargis based Castelion in 2022 with Sean Pitt and Andrew Kreitz, all SpaceX executives, saying that business manufacturing self-discipline may out-produce primes like Lockheed Martin and RTX relatively than out-engineer them. 

For instance, Castelion’s framework settlement with the Division of Warfare targets a minimal of 500 Blackbeard missiles per yr as soon as testing wraps up, a manufacturing price nearer to a manufacturing facility line than a defence contractor’s workshop. 

The corporate’s funding historical past reads like a gentle escalation of conviction. Lavrock Ventures led a $5.4 million pre-seed spherical in April 2023, adopted by Lavrock and Andreessen Horowitz backing a $14.2 million seed spherical later that yr. Lightspeed then led a $70 million Sequence A alongside $30 million in enterprise debt from Silicon Valley Financial institution in January 2025, earlier than Altimeter and Lightspeed co-led a $350 million Series B in December 2025. Together with this spherical’s fairness however excluding the brand new revolver, Castelion’s whole funding is roughly $1.27 billion.

“Lightspeed led Castelion’s Sequence A earlier than an entire system had flown. Three rounds later, the corporate is mixing its personal propellant in New Mexico and transport {hardware} to the companies. Only a few groups convert capital into bodily functionality at that ratio, which is why now we have invested in each spherical since,” mentioned Ravi Mhatre, co-founder of Lightspeed Enterprise Companions. 

Lavrock’s Alex Poulin, a companion on the agency, has watched the identical arc from even earlier: “We backed Castelion at pre-seed, when this was nonetheless simply an concept, and the manufacturing demand it’s producing right now is the clearest sign we’ve ever seen. In underneath 4 years, Castelion has gone from clear sheet to program of file, one of many quickest ramps within the sector.”

Altimeter’s Erik Kriessmann calls the spherical proof of idea as a lot proof of capital: “They’ve turned formidable guarantees into flight-tested {hardware} and actual manufacturing capability for vital nationwide safety priorities.”

Emma Norchet of recent investor T. Rowe Value Associates pointed to one thing rarer than expertise: “The corporate has contracts in hand, a producing campus constructed with its personal capital, and unit economics that enhance with scale — actually distinctive traits for an organization earlier than it reaches the general public markets.”

Common Catalyst’s Alexa Liautaud framed the wager in equally stark phrases: “We imagine credible deterrence can be received by firms that manufacture on the pace of the risk, construct on frontier expertise, and appeal to distinctive expertise.”

Interlagos chairman Tom Ochinero went additional nonetheless: “They’re constructing the capabilities to supply hundreds of hypersonic weapons a yr, one thing the U.S. has by no means seen earlier than.”

The brand new capital will develop manufacturing at Challenge Ranger, Castelion’s 1,000-acre campus in Sandoval County, New Mexico, the place the corporate has already dedicated greater than $250 million in non-public infrastructure spending and now plans tons of of hundreds of thousands extra. Past scaling Blackbeard, Castelion is accelerating the event of a longer-range precision strike weapon constructed on the identical manufacturing methods and creating a separate line of lower-cost air and missile defence techniques.

A crowded, capital-flush battlefield

Andreessen Horowitz’s American Dynamism fund, which co-led this spherical, has additionally backed Anduril and Hadrian, giving Castelion firm among the many agency’s highest-conviction defence bets. 

Katherine Boyle, normal companion on the agency, mentioned: “We backed Castelion when it was a small crew that needed to construct what the Division of Warfare most wanted quicker and cheaper than the consultants thought potential. 4 years later, there’s a manufacturing facility in New Mexico and a manufacturing settlement with the Division of Warfare.”

Castelion isn’t alone in elevating outsized defence rounds this yr: Hermeus hit a $1 billion valuation in April, and Quantum Systems raised $1.2 billion in July. The hypersonic weapons market alone is forecast to develop from $8.64 billion in 2026 at a ten.5% compound annual price, in line with The Business Research Company.

Whether or not Castelion can ship 500 missiles a yr at a worth the Pentagon retains paying is the query its $13 billion valuation now has to reply. Defence primes have promised that sort of scale for many years with out hitting it.