Defense firm Castelion announced a $1 billion Series C fundraise to accelerate the scaled production of Blackbeard, its first low-cost, mass-producible hypersonic strike missile.
Castelion said the funding will help expand manufacturing capacity at its Project Ranger site in Sandoval County, New Mexico. It called the 1,000-acre campus the largest dedicated hypersonic missile manufacturing facility in the nation. Castelion previously committed more than $250 million in private infrastructure spend at the site and will now commit hundreds of millions more to expand manufacturing capacity of Blackbeard.
The company said it's developing and testing a longer-range precision strike weapon using core technologies, components and manufacturing techniques from the Blackbeard weapon.
"The goal is to complement large, exquisite systems with a dramatically lower-cost alternative that can be produced at much higher rates - making long-range hypersonic strike a capability that can be fielded in meaningful quantities," the company said in a press release.
Castelion said it has secured more than $500 million in U.S. military contracts over the past 18 months. It plans to field Blackbeard next year.
