# Hypersonica closes a €100 million Series B for sovereign European hypersonic missiles, backed by Lightspeed and General Catalyst, as US tier-1 venture capital enters the EU bilateral defence stack.
EUACC page: https://www.euacc.ai/briefing/pulse-21
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## Public content

**issue:** 21
**type:** pulse
**date range:** 3 Nov 2026
**tagline:** Hypersonica closes a €100 million Series B for sovereign European hypersonic missiles, backed by Lightspeed and General Catalyst, as US tier-1 venture capital enters the EU bilateral defence stack.
**published at:** 2026-11-03
**sections:** 
  -     **body:** **Hypersonica**, a British-German defence startup based in Wessling near Munich, closed a **€100 million Series B** on 2 November. **Lightspeed Venture Partners** and **General Catalyst** co-led the round; existing investors **Plural** and **201 Ventures** also participated. Total capital raised stands at approximately **€126 million**, including a €23.3 million Series A from February 2026. The *Financial Times* reported a valuation of around **€700 million**.

The company builds **hypersonic deep-strike missiles** that travel above **Mach 5** -- fast enough to evade current interceptor systems. CEO **Philipp Kerth** and CTO **Marc Ewenz** both hold Oxford doctorates. Hypersonica claims its development approach cuts costs by more than **80 percent against traditional defence procurement**. A first test flight was conducted at **Andoya Space** in northern Norway in February. The funding will go to additional test flights, engineering expansion in the UK and Germany, and business development across Europe.
    **emoji:** 🚀
    **label:** HYPERSONICA SERIES B
    **heading:** €100 million to build Europe's sovereign hypersonic strike capability
  -     **body:** Hypersonica sits inside the **UK-German Deep Precision Strike programme**, a commitment under the **Trinity House Agreement**. The UK has **allocated £770 million** over four years to that programme -- government budget already committed, with Hypersonica as the commercial vehicle designed to absorb it.

The Lightspeed and General Catalyst co-lead signals a structural shift. US tier-1 venture funds have concentrated European defence exposure in software, intelligence, and logistics. Backing a hypersonic programme inside a bilateral government contract marks a new step, driven by NATO capability gaps and the procurement moat that embedded suppliers in government programmes hold.

**Target: 2029 deployment.** For founders in **dual-use hardware, propulsion, precision guidance, or test infrastructure**, this round shows that institutional capital now covers the full European defence stack -- not just the software layer on top of it.
    **emoji:** 🎯
    **label:** WHY IT MATTERS
    **heading:** US VCs enter European sovereign defence; the Trinity House programme is the model

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