One of the most valuable young defense companies in America is headquartered right here in Torrance.

Castelion announced a $1 billion Series C financing round on August 19, giving the rapidly growing defense-technology company a $13 billion valuation. The financing will help Castelion dramatically increase production of its Blackbeard hypersonic strike weapon while developing longer-range weapons and new defensive systems.

Castelion was founded in 2022 by former SpaceX engineers with an ambitious idea: use Silicon Valley-style development and modern manufacturing methods to build sophisticated weapons faster and at substantially greater scale than traditional defense programs.

Its first major product is Blackbeard, a hypersonic strike missile designed from the beginning to be relatively inexpensive and mass-producible.

Hypersonic weapons travel at speeds greater than Mach 5 while retaining the ability to maneuver, making them difficult for conventional missile-defense systems to track and intercept.

Castelion says Blackbeard went from a clean-sheet design to a U.S. military program of record in less than four years, with initial fielding targeted for 2027. The company has also secured more than $500 million in U.S. military contracts during the past 18 months.

The Navy is already part of that story.

In June, the U.S. Navy awarded Castelion a $23.4 million order for 50 Blackbeard pre-production prototypes, plus 50 storage and shipping containers. Earlier this year, another Navy contract worth nearly $50 million called for work on Blackbeard to be performed in Torrance through November 2027.

Where the $1 Billion Is Going

The financing includes $800 million in equity plus $250 million in committed revolving-credit financing. The equity portion was co-led by JPMorganChase’s Strategic Investment Group, Andreessen Horowitz and funds managed by Carlyle.

Castelion says the new capital will be used primarily to:

• Push Blackbeard toward maximum production
• Accelerate development of a new longer-range strike weapon
• Expand into air- and missile-defense systems
• Increase manufacturing capacity
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Much of Blackbeard's large-scale production will occur at Castelion's Project Ranger manufacturing campus in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, while Torrance remains the company's headquarters and an important engineering and development center.

Why This Is a Big Torrance Story

Castelion's rise is remarkable even by today's defense-tech standards.

The company raised $350 million in Series B financing in December 2025. Less than nine months later, its latest financing has pushed its valuation to $13 billion.

It also adds another name to an increasingly unusual concentration of aerospace and defense companies operating in Torrance.

Within just the past few weeks, local companies have announced major satellite investments, drone financing, nuclear-microreactor funding, military aviation programs and Space Force contracts.

Castelion, however, represents the biggest financial milestone of the group this week.

A company founded only four years ago in Torrance is now valued at $13 billion and preparing to mass-produce hypersonic weapons for the U.S. military.

Article Link: Read Castelion’s $1 Billion Funding Announcement