# SpaceX alumni's missile startup Castelion lands $13B valuation

> The hypersonic missile maker raised about $800 million in equity plus a $250 million credit facility at a $13 billion valuation, in a round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz, Carlyle, and JPMorgan Chase.

- Publication: Go Big News
- By Go Big News Staff (Staff News)
- Category: Startups
- Published: 2026-08-20T19:01:41+00:00
- Canonical: http://www.gobignews.com/startups/spacex-alumnis-missile-startup-castelion-lands-13b-valuation

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Defense manufacturer Castelion has closed a Series C financing that values the company at $13 billion, according to TechCrunch. The package totals roughly $1 billion — about $800 million in equity plus a $250 million revolving credit facility — and was co-led by Andreessen Horowitz, Carlyle, and JPMorgan Chase, with existing backers Lightspeed, General Catalyst, and Altimeter participating again.

Founded in 2022 by a group of former SpaceX executives, the Torrance, California-based company is applying the rapid-iteration, vertically integrated manufacturing approach of commercial aerospace to hypersonic weapons — systems that travel faster than five times the speed of sound. Its pitch is to produce them at lower cost and on faster timelines than traditional defense primes have managed.

The company's flagship product is the Blackbeard missile, which it plans to build at a production facility in New Mexico. Castelion has already secured more than $500 million in contracts with the US military, and the new capital is earmarked for its next phase: scaling from development work and early contracts into true mass production of its weapons systems.

Demand tailwinds are substantial. The Pentagon has signaled it wants to procure hypersonic missiles in far greater volume as it works to expand the US stockpile, giving manufacturers that can actually produce at scale a large and growing customer.

The makeup of the round is notable in its own right: a global bank, a major private-equity firm, and one of Silicon Valley's best-known venture firms co-leading a missile manufacturer's financing reflects how mainstream institutional capital has become in defense technology — and how quickly Castelion has moved from founding to a $13 billion price tag in roughly four years.

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## Companies in this story

- Castelion: http://www.gobignews.com/company/castelion