- 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 complete 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, Normal Catalyst, and Interlagos, in addition to new investor T. Rowe Worth Associates.
“Deterrence is dependent upon unapologetic American power: extremely succesful weapon methods that adversaries concern, produced in portions they will’t think about, at a value taxpayers can afford. There’s a producing renaissance underway, and this spherical turbocharges American manufacturing of Blackbeard,” stated Bryon Hargis, Castelion’s co-founder and chief govt.
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 present 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 report in underneath 4 years, with fielding focused for 2027.
“Castelion helps to deal with a crucial nationwide safety problem by bringing better velocity, agility, and manufacturing capability to the event of next-generation defence applied sciences,” stated 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 workforce, put it extra bluntly: “We view Castelion as a crucial 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 might out-produce primes like Lockheed Martin and RTX relatively than out-engineer them.
For instance, Castelion’s framework settlement with the Division of Conflict targets a minimal of 500 Blackbeard missiles per 12 months as soon as testing wraps up, a manufacturing fee 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 12 months. 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 complete 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 delivery {hardware} to the providers. Only a few groups convert capital into bodily functionality at that ratio, which is why we’ve invested in each spherical since,” stated Ravi Mhatre, co-founder of Lightspeed Enterprise Companions.
Lavrock’s Alex Poulin, a associate 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 in the present day is the clearest sign we’ve ever seen. In underneath 4 years, Castelion has gone from clear sheet to program of report, 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 bold guarantees into flight-tested {hardware} and actual manufacturing capability for crucial nationwide safety priorities.”
Emma Norchet of recent investor T. Rowe Worth 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 — really distinctive traits for a corporation earlier than it reaches the general public markets.”
Normal Catalyst’s Alexa Liautaud framed the guess in equally stark phrases: “We imagine credible deterrence can be gained by firms that manufacture on the velocity 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 provide 1000’s of hypersonic weapons a 12 months, one thing the U.S. has by no means seen earlier than.”
The brand new capital will develop manufacturing at Undertaking Ranger, Castelion’s 1,000-acre campus in Sandoval County, New Mexico, the place the corporate has already dedicated greater than $250 million in personal infrastructure spending and now plans a whole bunch of thousands and thousands extra. Past scaling Blackbeard, Castelion is accelerating the event of a longer-range precision strike weapon constructed on the identical manufacturing strategies and creating a separate line of lower-cost air and missile defence methods.
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 associate on the agency, stated: “We backed Castelion when it was a small workforce that wished to construct what the Division of Conflict most wanted sooner 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 Conflict.”
Castelion isn’t alone in elevating outsized defence rounds this 12 months: 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 fee, in line with The Business Research Company.
Whether or not Castelion can ship 500 missiles a 12 months at a value the Pentagon retains paying is the query its $13 billion valuation now has to reply. Defence primes have promised that form of scale for many years with out hitting it.
