Hypersonic Drone Maker Moves to El Segundo From Atlanta

Hermeus, an aerospace startup developing hypersonic drones, is moving to Los Angeles after closing a $350 million Series C funding round, bringing its valuation to $1 billion.

The company will relocate its headquarters from Atlanta to El Segundo, L.A. Business First reported, where it will expand its prototyping operations.

“This new funding lets us build multiple aircraft at the same time and scale our manufacturing capabilities,” Founder and CEO AJ Piplica said in a statement.

The company will occupy two buildings with a total 67,000 square feet at 888 North Douglas Street in El Segundo. The structures are part of a 30-acre complex owned by Hackman Capital Partners that previously belonged to defense contractor Northrop Grumman. Hackman, the largest independent owner of film studios in the L.A. market, bought the property in 2016 and repositioned it as a creative campus.

Hermeus spokesperson Farshad Shadloo called El Segundo “the heart of the world’s premier aerospace corridor,” with access to talent and “prototyping infrastructure that simply doesn’t exist anywhere else.”

The drone maker joins a list of aerospace firms moving their main office to Southern California. They include Varda Space, which will also relocate its headquarters to El Segundo, and Trio Manufacturing, which took 125,000 square feet in Carson last year.

The funding round will accelerate Hermeus’s transition from prototype development to mission-ready, high-Mach unmanned aircraft for national security applications. The company recently completed the successful flight of its Quarterhorse Mk 2.1. Hermeus plans to scale production to a fleet of three F-16-sized aircraft, advancing toward Mach 3 capabilities.

Hermeus will retain its 110,000-square-foot footprint at 3960 Dekalb Technology Parkway in Atlanta, which will function as its manufacturing facility. The company maintains another Southern California facility at 3401 Jack Northrop Avenue in Hawthorne, according to L.A. Business First.

– Joel Russell