Euro Trip

Hypersonica Raises €100M Series B for European Deep Strike

Well, gosh darn. So much for Europe being conservative when it comes to funding defense.

This morning, British-slash-German hypersonic deep-strike company Hypersonica announced that it’s closed a €100M Series B to “accelerate development of its deep-strike systems, increase testing cadence and expand operations and reindustrialisation across Europe.”

• The round was co-led by Lightspeed and General Catalyst, with participation from existing investors including Plural, 201 Ventures and Germany’s Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation (SPRIND).

“The debate about whether Europe needs hypersonic deep-strike capability is over,” Co-founders Philipp Kerth (CEO) and Marc Ewenz (CTO) said in a joint statement. “Governments have recognised the requirement and begun funding programmes. The challenge now is delivery. Europe needs credible hypersonic long-range capability, and more value for every pound and euro it spends.”

"We have shown that next-generation hypersonic systems can be developed in Europe faster and more affordably than conventional wisdom suggests,” they added. “[This] Series B marks our transition from demonstration to delivery.”

Kaboom: Now, Hypersonica is one of those “walk quietly and carry a big stick” type companies in Europe (except, in this case, the stick is actually just a missile).

• The company was founded in Germany in 2023 around a pretty ambitious goal: building a sovereign, European hypersonic deep-strike capability by 2029. The idea is to break free of American weapons systems and parts, because, well, you know.
• Like a lot of new-age missile companies, they’re redesigning these systems from the ground up to be modular, easy to iterate, and designed for manufacturing. The goal is cheaper missiles that can be built in Europe a heck of a lot faster, with far fewer bottlenecks—Hypersonica says its manufacturing process “reduces costs by more than 80% compared to conventional approaches.”
• The company’s first publicly announced missile is the HS-1, its hypersonic test vehicle. Back in February, HS-1 topped Mach 6 and demonstrated a 300 km range in a flight test in Norway. (You’ve probably seen the photos.)
• That first test vehicle actually used a rocket motor built by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and Bayern-Chemie, according to Der Spiegel reporting, but the company plans to design and build its own SRM for the final thing.

Fit the bill: And Hypersonica isn’t just building these missiles for shits and gigs—the UK and Germany launched their official Deep Precision Strike initiative under the Trinity Agreement (for defense cooperation) back in 2024. And Hypersonica’s missiles are well on their way to fitting the bill.

• In 2025, the two countries officially agreed to jointly develop a weapon with a range of 2,000+ km.
• Then, earlier this year, the UK MoD said that it would actually be a family of systems—stealth cruise missiles (that don’t need to travel at hypersonic speeds) plus hypersonic missiles, all with multiple launch options across land, air, and sea.
• This summer, the UK officially committed £770M ($1.03B) over four years to the joint program, and has said it will spend £3B on deep strike more broadly by 2030.
• The German commitments have not been disclosed, but twelve European allies (including Germany) committed $50B to sovereign deep strike development over the next decade this summer.

In other words, the program and the budget are (at least in theory) there. Now it’s about, like, actually building the damn thing.

Reindustrialize, baby: With this funding, Hypersonica says it will supercharge development of its missiles and speed up testing cadence.

• Apparently, they’ve massively expanded their engineering team since that flight test in February—this money means they can do more of that. The company says it will add “hundreds of highly skilled engineering and manufacturing jobs across the UK and Germany.”

“This funding will accelerate development, increase testing cadence, support European reindustrialisation and help ensure Europe has access to sovereign capability developed and produced in Europe,” Kerth and Ewenz said.

Panel Announcement: The European Defense Summit

If you have heard anything about European defense tech, you’ve heard of Helsing. And if you’ve heard anything about funding defense tech, you’ve heard of General Catalyst.

Lucky for you, we’re bringing both of these giants to the Tectonic European Defense Summit at the Shangri-La in Paris.

On December 1 at 11:30 AM, Tectonic Managing Editor Erin O’Brien will sit down with Jeannette zu Fürstenberg,Managing Director at General Catalyst, and Antoine Bordes, co-founder and Chief Scientist at Helsing, for a fireside chat on the future of European defense tech.

They’ll dig into what it takes to build (and fund) Europe’s next generation of defense giants, the capabilities the continent needs to develop, and what the future of warfare in Europe might actually look like—among much else.

You really don’t want to miss this.

SightGlass onboard a GARC USV. Image: Aevex

Rumors of Aevex’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.

On Friday, the California-based drone-maker announced that it’s secured $41.6M across two contracts with the Navy for its Fisher and SightGlass mine countermeasure (MCM) systems, designed to be deployed from the company’s Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft (GARC) and its newer Lynx and Chaser small unmanned surface vessels (sUSVs).

• SightGlass and Fisher, like GARC and Aevex’s other USVs, were developed by BlackSea, which Aevex snapped up in August for $650M.
• The contracts came days after Bloomberg reported that the US Navy had “suspended” GARC orders “due to ongoing performance issues.”
• Aevex, however, disputes that account, saying that “no orders have been halted” and that there was nothing to suspend in the first place, as it’s “successfully completed its contractual obligation having delivered 325 GARC units to the Navy in 2025.” High drama on the high seas.

Mine all mine: If you’ve been keeping an eye on a certain strait off the coast of Iran, sub-sea mines—or the threat of them—have been causing a whole lot of problems. That’s brought minehunting back in vogue, and served as one of the most notable tests of new tech in the war with Iran (remember that Anduril Dive-LD drone sub that was captured back in September?).

In fact, BlackSea (now Aevex) purpose-built its MCM systems for the Strait of Hormuz, and according to Aevex SVP for Maritime Systems (and former BlackSea CEO) Bob Pudney, they’ve been “operating overseas for weeks, if not over a month” after a strong showing in the DIU’s Mine Countermeasure Modernization Prize Challenge earlier this year.

• Aevex was one of three companies—alongside Vatn Systems and BeeX—awarded prizes in the challenge last month.
• Out of the $41.6M total in Aevex’s contract, “$26M came through DIU OTA to cover production and operation of Fisher” and “$15.6M through GARC contract to cover production and operations of SightGlass,” the company told Tectonic.
• Aevex is on a $350M contract (the subject of the Bloomberg report) with the Navy through 2027 for GARCs, which includes upgrades and payload modernization. The company says it has completed all deliveries and is shifting focus to adapting it to new use cases, like mine-hunting.

One-two punch: The Navy is getting a mine-hunting one-two punch with Aevex’s Fisher and SightGlass.

• SightGlass is the hunter, deployed from USVs to detect mines and scan the waters for threats.
• Fisher is the killer that comes in “once the SightGlass GARCs have detected the mine” to “neutralize it, keeping military personnel out of the water, reducing risk, and making that cost-benefit better in our favor,” according to Pudney.

“We built [Fisher and SightGlass] around the real-time operational requirement,” Pudney said. “If you look at the Strait of Hormuz, it's no deeper than roughly 300 feet, so we wanted to be able to operate the entire depth of the water column, and we worked backward from that requirement.”

• “As we look at deeper operating areas, we may need to change up the equipment that we deploy there to facilitate those, but this was built from the ground up for the Strait of Hormuz,” he added.

Money talks: And despite the less-than-flattering reports on Aevex’s relationship with the Navy, Aevex says the mine-countermeasures deal proves the service is “voting with its dollars, and our relationship is proven by contractual actions, including the [MCM] ones,” Pudney said. “I've been associated with BlackSea, now Aevex, since 2024, and I don't think our relationship with the Navy has ever been better.”

“As soon as Epic Fury kicked off, we were really collaborative together, and it was really about how we develop capabilities that the warfighter needs today,” he added. “I think the Navy sees that and recognizes that.”

In Other News

• The US Army tapped Lockheed Martin for the $1B+ Future Interceptor program, designed to develop a new interceptor with greater engagement range, altitude, velocity, and maneuverability than legacy systems.
• Rheinmetall and Silvus are teaming up to integrate Silvus’ passive RF sensors into Rheinmetall’s ground-based air defense systems.
• The UK Ministry of Defense announced a new policy requiring foreign firms that secure contracts with the UK valued at £50M ($67M) or more to set up British factories, invest in local suppliers, and transfer technologies.
• Small ground robotics startup Swarmbotics is working with TERN to develop GPS-free navigation and swarming capabilities for autonomous ground robots.
• Hanwha Defense USA snagged a $269M contract to build a Medium Landing Ship (LSM) for the US Navy and Marine Corps under an agreement with TOTE Services.
• CX2 is integrating its electronic warfare and RF sensing systems into Allen Control Systems’ Bullfrog counter-drone autonomous turret.

The View from North Korea

North Korea unveiled a a previously unseen tailless stealth uncrewed combat air vehicle (UCAV) at a military technology exhibition attended by Kim Jong Un last Thursday.

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