Analysis
Firehawk Defense closed a Series D round of more than $150 million at a valuation above $1.4 billion, the Addison, Texas-based rocket-propellant maker said, reaching unicorn status roughly seven years after its founding.
What Firehawk Defense does
Will Edwards founded Firehawk -- originally named Firehawk Aerospace -- in 2019 with co-founders Steve Edwards and Ronald Jones. The company makes rocket and artillery propellant using a thermoplastic process that it says takes hours instead of the weeks required by traditional batch mixing, casting and curing. The resulting material can be molded, extruded or 3D-printed into shapes for artillery motors, solid rocket motors and other propellant products, per Dallas Innovates. Firehawk runs five facilities: a 320-acre propellant and motor plant in Lawton, Oklahoma; a missile integration plant in Crawford, Mississippi; and two R&D, static-fire and flight-test sites in West Texas. The company employs about 150 people. Its Hydra-70 rockets, built at the Mississippi facility, passed a live-fire test at Yuma Proving Ground with a 100% success rate.
Firehawk Defense funding history
Firehawk's capital raises have compounded quickly.
“Will Edwards founded Firehawk -- originally named Firehawk Aerospace -- in 2019 with co-founders Steve Edwards and Ronald Jones.”
- Seed, Nov 2020 -- $2 million, funded its first engineering hires.
- Series C, Sep 2025 -- $60 million (oversubscribed), led by 1789 Capital with Draper Associates, Boka Capital and Stellar Ventures, at a $290 million valuation, per Dallas Innovates.
- Strategic investment, Nov 2025 -- amount undisclosed.
- Series D (new) -- more than $150 million at a valuation above $1.4 billion, nearly a 5x step-up from the Series C mark in just over a year.
That pace mirrors how fast defense-tech valuations have moved as the Pentagon looks to diversify its propellant and motor supply chain.
Who invested in Firehawk Defense
Advent International, the Boston private-equity firm, and Rochefort Asset Management, based in West Palm Beach, Florida, led the Series D as co-lead investors. Advent partner Shonnel Malani said the firm is backing Firehawk because it is "solving one of the most critical bottlenecks in the American missile supply chain." Rochefort's Kyle Bass framed the bet similarly: "Firehawk solves the problem at the source: inside the factory." Dallas Innovates reports other new and existing investors and strategic partners also participated, though none are named beyond the two leads.
Defense propulsion market and competitors
Firehawk isn't the only well-funded entrant chasing growth in solid rocket propulsion.
- Market size -- the solid rocket motor market was valued at $6.79 billion in 2024, projected to reach $10 billion by 2029 (8.1% CAGR), per a MarketsandMarkets report distributed via PR Newswire.
- Mach Industries -- a comparable propulsion startup, raised $300 million in a Series C this year led by Infinite Capital and Ribbit Capital at a $1.8 billion valuation, per Silicon Canals, and has separately acquired solid-rocket-motor maker Exquadrum.
Both companies are betting the Pentagon wants more than one domestic supplier for propellant and motors -- part of a broader defense-tech funding wave we track in our funding tracker, a break from decades of consolidation around a handful of legacy primes.
What to watch next
Firehawk's existing contracts give it real near-term revenue to point to: a $24 million, 22-month Pentagon deal to expand propellant production for the M1128 extended-range projectile, a deal with General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems on 155mm base-bleed motors, and an Army award to help diversify the Hydra-70 rocket supply chain. What the headline valuation doesn't show is whether those contracts scale into the volume production Firehawk's five facilities are built for -- defense procurement timelines are notoriously slow, and the risk is that a 5x valuation markup in 14 months is underwriting execution that hasn't happened yet. Firehawk says it will use the new capital to scale production, open more R&D sites and hire; the next milestone to watch is whether its Lawton, Oklahoma plant hits meaningful volume before any further funding round.