Hypersonica, the British-German company developing hypersonic deep-strike systems for Europe, has raised €100 million in a Series B round co-led by Lightspeed and General Catalyst, money it will put into accelerating development, increasing its testing cadence and expanding operations across Europe, according to the company.
Existing investors including Plural and 201 Ventures continued their participation in the round, which the company says is expected to support the creation of hundreds of highly skilled engineering and manufacturing jobs across the United Kingdom and Germany.
Co-founders Dr Philipp Kerth, the chief executive, and Dr Marc Ewenz, the chief technology officer, said: “The debate about whether Europe needs hypersonic deep-strike capability is over. 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. And we’re proud to be backed by investors who share our conviction that Europe should be able to develop and produce advanced strategic capabilities itself.
“Series B marks our transition from demonstration to delivery. 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.”
Alexander Schmitt, a partner at Lightspeed, said: “Hypersonica is redefining how advanced defence capability gets built. The team pairs deep technical expertise with exceptional speed of execution, and the strength of our support reflects our confidence in both the technology and their ability to deliver.”
Jeannette zu Fürstenberg, president and managing director at General Catalyst, said: “Strategic autonomy begins with the ability to build critical technologies at speed, at scale and at a fraction of the cost of traditional systems. That is exactly what Philipp, Marc, and the Hypersonica team are doing. They combine the ambition to tackle one of Europe’s most critical capability gaps with the engineering excellence to actually solve it. As Europe invests in its security and resilience, it will be companies like Hypersonica that play a defining role in translating ambition into real capability.”
The company tested its HS-1 prototype in February, reaching speeds above Mach 6 over a range exceeding three hundred kilometres and becoming the first privately funded European defence company to achieve that. It says the development model behind the flight reduces costs by more than eighty per cent against conventional approaches, and that it has since expanded its engineering team, deepened engagement with governments and strengthened partnerships across the European defence industrial base.
Government money has started moving in the same direction, and the Defence Investment Plan allocates an initial £770 million over four years to the United Kingdom-German Deep Precision Strike programme under the Trinity House Agreement, and a NATO-led multinational initiative announced in July envisages £37 billion of investment in deep precision strike over the next decade.
Long-range conventional strike has been the most visible European capability gap since the war in Ukraine began. Britain and France hold Storm Shadow and SCALP, air-launched weapons with ranges in the low hundreds of kilometres, and the ground-launched systems that would reach further were removed from European arsenals by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Filling the gap has so far meant buying American, which brings export control conditions with it.
The company stresses that it develops, owns and controls its technology in Europe and that its systems are free of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, the American export regime that gives Washington a say over where a weapon containing United States components can go and how it can be used. European governments have pushed harder on that point since 2022.
Hypersonic weapons travel above Mach 5 and manoeuvre during flight, so they follow nothing like the predictable arc of a ballistic missile and are considerably harder for existing defences to engage. Russia and China have both fielded systems of this kind, and the European Long-range Strike Approach brings together France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden on a parallel effort.
Hypersonica aims to deliver hypersonic deep-strike systems by 2029, and it raised €23.3 million in a Series A round led by Plural in February, announced alongside the HS-1 flight. The company operates from Munich and London.
The UK is already very well served in conventional deep strike with the decision under the Blair government to go for 1,000 cruise missiles (TLAM and Stomshadow) which at the time was a world leading amount, however it’s inexcusable that we stayed below 1,000 for so long, not fully replacing inventory and we relied too long on TLAM. That being said we have the new weapons with Stratus which is a world class family of deep strike weapons. The army now needs to get its ass in gear and acquire land launched cruise missiles capable of striking Russia from UK soil and acquiring a UK made cheaper SRBM to complement PrSM. These are no longer nice to have capabilities, no longer things that can be left in the leave it to America category and please no one tell me how it should be the RAF and not the Army’s job to acquire SRBM’s and land launched cruise missiles. The navy and raf are already very well served in deep strike missiles.
The army needs to start thinking like a strategic war winning force instead of a tactical contribution to US foreign policy.
Is the UK learning from world events? Does it not realise the need for Sovereign capabilities?
Germany is likely to go over to the AFD party. Far-right Putin-loving. Is this really a good idea getting into bed with German industry again? Germany will also block any UK defence sales it is involved with (e.g. re Saudi Typhoons etc.) and ultimately, like France and America, only has its own industry’s interests at heart.
An awful lot of the Anglo German companies that admittedly are doing great work, seem under closer examination to be to all intent and purposes German companies with secondary bases in the UK, or in one case educated here at Oxbridge but exploiting their acquired skills from a German base and mixed investment at best. Must say something about the UK’s system, not sure I can fully conclude answers to those questions it poses mind other to say it definitely raises concerns, certainly indeed with the political direction of Germany presently.