Remember that Firehawk winning streak we covered last month? Well, turns out the energetics startup wasn’t quite finished. Yesterday, the company announced—just two months after closing a $60M funding—that it’s received an additional “eight-figure” strategic investment from Hanwha Defense USA, according to a company spokesperson.
Firehawk CEO Will Edwards told Tectonic that the partnership will accelerate the company’s ability to not only make propellant and rocket motors—their bread and butter—but build full-blown missile systems.
“[Hanwha] has the ability…to build full missile systems, and Firehawk gives them the opportunity to have a stake in one of the very few companies, if not the only company, that will actually be able to produce propellant and rocket motors in scaled numbers,” he said.
Plus, Edwards said the money will help them scale up production at their Oklahoma facility (set to come online next year) to thousands of pounds of propellant per year and fund a few soon-to-be-announced acquisitions. We love a tease.
Rocket-fueled: Firehawk has had quite the year.
- As part of that sweet, sweet $60M round closed in September, they formed a strategic partnership with Presto Ventures, a joint venture between Czech VC Presto Ventures and the Czechoslovak Group (CSG). That gives them a foothold in Europe.
- Also in September, they announced a $4M AFWERX contract that’ll fund development and hot-fire tests of their 3D-printed, thermoplastic-based propellant.
- Back in June, they scored a $4.9M AFRL contract to build next-gen hybrid rocket engines and announced that they’re building a $22M+ facility in Oklahoma.
- And in August, they also successfully flight tested a hybrid rocket engine powered by their very own 3D-printed propellant for the Army Applications Laboratory (AAL).
On Fire(hawk): Now, why is everyone so pumped about energetics? Well, as we’ve said before, the US and its allies have a bit of a propulsion problem. That’s bad news for all of the things (like, say, missiles) that go boom.
- Production of both propellant and the solid rocket motors (SRMs) has long been dominated by those few primes, which use pretty old-school production techniques.
- Last year, Aerojet Rocketdyne—purchased by L3Harris in 2023—said it was way, way behind schedule in terms of SRMs.
- Raytheon and DoD leadership—among others—have all said that the SRM shortage is the main thing limiting missile production.
Edwards founded Firehawk back in 2019 to try and help fix this problem. He and his team applied modern manufacturing techniques—like 3D printing—to propellant and motor production. That took production time from weeks down to hours.
And the traditional producers have taken notice—in 2022, Firehawk inked a deal with Raytheon (RTX) to collab on hybrid rocket propulsion tech.
Far, far away: We had to ask Edwards—given that Hanwha is originally a Korean company, does this mean that Firehawk is looking to expand in the Indo-Pacific? His answer was coy.
“I think that Firehawk’s uniquely positioned to stand up propellant production facilities as well as rocket motor facilities anywhere in the world,” he said.
For now, the company plans to produce all of this propellant and the motors Hanwha might need at their facility at Fort Sill, in Oklahoma—Edwards said it would be up and running at full capacity by the end of 2026.
They’ll also work with the US arm of Hanwha on collaborative designs and will likely integrate Firehawk motors and propellant into existing Hanwha weapons systems, though Edwards couldn’t confirm which.
“We’re working with them quite closely on different systems, different designs, and opportunities,” he said. “And Firehawk is actually going to be making a couple of acquisitions here in the very, very near future that will speed up…our ability to work together.”
Overall, he said, this shows that Firehawk is becoming a major player in the supplier game.
“The investments are great, but I’m a big believer that defense is a components business,” he said, “It looks like Northrop and Raytheon and Lockheed are always at each other’s throats, but they’re also propping each other up. Firehawk wants to be partners with this new wave of incumbents, like the Hanwhas and the CSGs of the world. These companies are doing billions of dollars in revenue and can buy motors from us in large quantities.”
Sounds like a pretty decent business plan to us.