A Startup Founded by Ex-SpaceX Engineers Is Now Worth $13 Billion Building Hypersonic Missiles for Under $500,000 Each

Castelion, a defense startup founded in 2022 by three former SpaceX executives, has grown into a company valued at $13 billion on the strength of a low-cost hypersonic missile called Blackbeard, capable of flying at Mach 5 or faster. The company was started by chief executive Bryon Hargis, who previously launched the satellite venture Starshield, chief financial officer Andrew Kreitz, who managed classified finance work, and Sean Pitt, who led sales for SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket.

Castelion's early funding was modest compared to where the company sits now. Lavrock led a $5.6 million seed round in April 2023, and Andreessen Horowitz contributed an $8.6 million seed extension after the company released a video of a successful rocket motor test, an early signal of the technical credibility that would later help it win much larger government backing.

That backing has since arrived at scale. In September, the U.S. Navy awarded Castelion a contract worth up to $200 million, adding to a total of more than $500 million in U.S. government contracts the company now holds. Castelion has also achieved what the Pentagon calls program of record status, a budget designation that signals sustained, ongoing funding rather than a one-off testing contract.

The company has scaled its workforce to match. Castelion grew from 159 employees in late 2025 to more than 400, and it is building a 1,000 acre production facility in New Mexico, an effort internally called Project Ranger, that could eventually manufacture thousands of missiles a year. Each Blackbeard costs less than $500,000 to build, and the missile has already completed test flights launched from F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets.

Castelion's rise reflects a real gap in U.S. military capability. The United States currently has no hypersonic missiles operationally deployed, while China and Russia both already field them. Lockheed Martin's Dark Eagle hypersonic program, the more established effort meant to close that gap, is reportedly running about three years behind schedule, leaving an opening that a fast-moving, SpaceX-bred startup like Castelion has been able to move into.