In a world where defense budgets balloon but delivery timelines crawl, Castelion just dropped a $350 million statement that they didn’t come here to admire the problem, they came to solve it.
Founded in late 2022 by a trio of former SpaceX operators who know what it means to move fast and break inertia, Castelion is the startup that’s turning the defense-industrial complex into something that actually moves. Bryon Hargis (CEO), Sean Pitt (COO), and Andrew Kreitz (CFO) weren’t just part of the SpaceX machinery, they helped build the engine. Now they’ve taken that same muscle memory, iterative speed, vertical integration, zero tolerance for bloat, and aimed it at a sector that desperately needs more substance and a lot less ceremony.
Let’s talk numbers, because Castelion’s aren’t just impressive, they’re aggressive. A $350 million Series B led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Altimeter Capital, adding to the $100 million Series A (January 2025) and the $14.2 million seed round (October 2023), pushes total funding to $464.2 million. Add $22 million in contracts across the Navy, Air Force, and Army, and you start to get the picture, this isn’t some D.C. defense darling playing dress-up in khakis. This is execution in steel-toe boots.
The flagship? The Blackbeard Ground Launch system. Designed to hit roughly 80% of the Army’s PrSM Increment 4 performance at a fraction of the cost, and compatible with HIMARS and MFOM platforms, Blackbeard is the kind of missile program that trades PowerPoint for payload. Testing isn’t a milestone, it’s muscle memory. March 11, 2024: first hypersonic vehicle test. Seven static fires in the last month of 2024. Three in a single day. That’s not iteration, that’s obsession.
The company is scaling fast with primary operations in El Segundo, California (737 Lairport Street) and growing footprints in Allen and Midland, Texas. With product assembly, motor testing, avionics development, and seeker terminal guidance all under one roof, Castelion isn’t outsourcing its future, it’s building it brick by brick. And yes, they’re eyeing southern Arizona next.
Strategically backed by folks like Katherine Boyle (Andreessen Horowitz) and Jonathan Lacoste (Space.VC), Castelion has built a syndicate that doesn’t just fund, they understand. The game isn’t about being the next Lockheed or Raytheon. It’s about being the first Castelion. A hypersonic disruptor born in El Segundo, scaling like a startup but swinging like a prime.
