Hypersonic missile start-up secures funds to boost Europe’s deep-strike capability
British-German group Hypersonica raises €100mn to strengthen ability to hit long-range strategically important targets
A British-German start-up developing hypersonic long-range missiles has raised €100mn of funding, boosting European efforts to develop the ability to strike deep inside Russia.
Hypersonica said it had secured the new cash in a deal co-led by Silicon Valley venture capital firms Lightspeed and General Catalyst. The deal valued the company at roughly €700mn, people familiar with the matter said.
The funds will allow Hypersonica to accelerate the development of its deep-strike missiles at a time when Europe is pushing to strengthen its ability to hit long-range strategically important targets without the help of Washington.
“The debate over whether Europe needs these kinds of deterrence capabilities is over. It’s absolutely clear we need them,” said Hypersonica chief executive Philipp Kerth in an interview.
“It’s now really a question about who can deliver those systems and that’s what the [funding round] is positioning us to do.”
The company is part of a flagship defence co-operation project between the UK and Germany. The countries agreed, under their Trinity House agreement signed in 2024, to produce a family of advanced ground-launched missiles with a range of more than 2,000km.
Germany’s Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation, which looks for the next technology innovations, also participated in an earlier €23mn funding round in February. Hypersonica said at the time that it had become the first privately funded European defence company to complete a successful hypersonic test flight.
The programme envisages the development of two types of weapons: an advanced cruise missile and a hypersonic glide vehicle — a type of weapon that travels at ultra-high speed on an unpredictable trajectory, making it hard to track and intercept.
Hypersonica is involved in the plan, as is the pan-European missile maker MBDA. The project is still in the conceptual phase with the aim of starting development in 2027.
France has also sought to join the accord, which gained fresh urgency among officials earlier this year when Donald Trump cancelled a plan to deploy a battalion equipped with Tomahawk missiles and other long-range weapons to a US base in Germany.
The company aims to enter full operations by 2029. Kerth said hypersonic technology would give Europe an edge because it “turns the needle on deterrence”.
The latest investment round for Hypersonica also includes participation from existing European investors Plural and 201 Ventures. Kerth said that Europeans owned the majority of the company.
Alexander Schmitt, a partner at Lightspeed, said part of Hypersonica’s strength was that it had done “real testing, not only simulations”.
Hypersonica said that the funding would allow it to create hundreds of engineering and manufacturing jobs across the UK and Germany. The start-up has previously said its rapid development cycle was intended to reduce the time and cost to build advanced strike systems.
Investors have clamoured to back European defence technology groups in recent years, as the region’s governments increase their military spending. The industry is now under pressure to scale up production at speed and at lower cost.
In July, the UK said it would lead a European initiative to boost funding for deep precision-strike capabilities, aiming for a total spending of $50bn from European allies over the next decade.