Hermeus Closes $350 Million Series C Round at $1 Billion Valuation

Hermeus has closed a $350 million Series C financing that values the company at $1 billion and will fund the next phase of its unmanned high-Mach aircraft development.

Credit: Hermeus

The Los Angeles-based defense aviation startup announced the round on April 7 from its new headquarters in El Segundo, California. The financing consists of $200 million in equity led by Khosla Ventures and $150 million in debt financing.

Existing investors Canaan Partners, Founders Fund, RTX Ventures, Bling Capital and In-Q-Tel participated again.

New equity backers include Cox Enterprises and its venture fund Socium Ventures, Destiny Tech100, Georgia Tech Foundation, 137 Ventures and GSBackers.

Debt capital came from Silicon Valley Bank, a division of First Citizens Bank, Pinegrove Venture Partners, Hercules Capital and Trinity Capital. The round brings Hermeus’ total capital raised to more than $500 million.

The company plans to use the funds to expand its fleet of three F-16-scale aircraft under the Quarterhorse program. Quarterhorse Mk 2.1 completed a successful flight last month, putting supersonic flight within reach.

The next aircraft, Mk 2.2, will target sustained supersonic performance while Mk 2.3 will push toward Mach 3.

Hermeus is also integrating customer payloads and scaling manufacturing. Its Atlanta facility will shift focus to production as the new El Segundo headquarters handles continued prototyping.

“Speed is life for us,” said AJ Piplica, founder and CEO of Hermeus.

“This new funding lets us build multiple aircraft at the same time and scale our manufacturing capabilities, adding more hardware richness and robustness to our program. That accelerates our path to ramjet-powered flight. We are grateful for the support of our long-term partners who share our vision of building fast planes fast. Together, we’re bringing scalable, asymmetric capabilities to our national security customers.” He added.

Hermeus has positioned itself as the only venture-backed company actively flight-testing an unmanned aircraft designed to reach supersonic and eventually hypersonic speeds.

It works with the Department of Defense on programs that include risk reduction for high-speed platforms and has previously secured contracts including a $60 million Air Force agreement.

The company’s hardware-first approach draws from rapid iteration methods used in other advanced aerospace programs, emphasizing frequent build-test-learn cycles over traditional long development timelines.

Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures, said in the announcement, “The team is on a clear trajectory to solve a critical capability gap for their customers by building, flying, and iterating at a pace that matches the modern battlefield.”

The company now employs nearly 300 people and continues to hire as it prepares to deliver operational high-Mach systems. Hermeus has not disclosed specific customer delivery timelines but has described the funding as an inflection point that moves it from early prototypes to mission-ready platforms for the U.S. military.