Test and Operations Engineering Intern

Hermeus hits $1B valuation, raises $350M and moves HQ from Atlanta to Los Angeles. Defense aviation company Hermeus hit the $1 billion "unicorn" mark this week following the announcement of a $350 million Series C ($200 million in venture capital and a $150 million debt financing). On top of the capital injection (led by returning investor Khosla Ventures), the Atlanta-founded company announced it is packing up and moving its HQ to El Segundo, the city directly south of the Los Angeles International Airport. Hermes will keep its facility open in Atlanta, shifting its focus to production. No layoffs in Atlanta are planned, per reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Hermes is building unmanned aircrafts for national security missions, working with the Department of War and other governmental organizations. Other investors in the company include NASA, US Air Force, and Sam Altman. The team includes more than 275 employees spread across Atlanta, Los Angeles, DC, and Jacksonville. "Speed is life for us," said AJ Piplica, Founder and CEO of Hermeus, in a press release. "This new funding lets us build multiple aircraft at the same time and scale our manufacturing capabilities, adding more hardware richness and robustness to our program. That accelerates our path to ramjet-powered flight. We are grateful for the support of our long-term partners who share our vision of building fast planes fast. Together, we're bringing scalable, asymmetric capabilities to our national security customers." Hypepotamus has covered Hermeus' growth over the years, including its 2019 seed round and its 2020 $16 million Series A round. The company has had several successful test flights in the last few months. Its focus has been on rapid testing to improve on its advanced hypersonic development. Atlanta's aerospace & Space scene. Aerospace is the State of Georgia's number one export and the second largest manufacturing industry, generating close to $60 billion in economic impact. The state is home to over 800 aerospace companies, with the Atlanta area serving as the home base for companies like Atomic-6, Reditus Space, Generation Orbit, Space Works, and Blink Astro. The Metro area is also home to aerospace giants like Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. (Savannah), Lockheed Martin (Marietta), and Delta Air Lines (Atlanta) But Hermeus isn't the only locally-grown startup in the industry that Atlanta has lost this year. Last month, Mantis Space, co-founded by a team with deep ties to Metro Atlanta and Georgia Tech, came out of stealth and announced it was opening its headquarters in New Mexico after securing a mix of venture capital and state-funded grants.

Hermeus moves HQ to El Segundo with new funding. Published on April 07, 2026 Hermeus, the Atlanta-born hypersonic aircraft startup that wants to make "really, really fast" the new normal, is shifting its headquarters to El Segundo and settling into executive offices at the revamped 888 North Douglas campus. The company will hang on to its large Atlanta production factory for assembly work, while executive, design, and prototyping teams head to the South Bay, adding one more high-profile aerospace name to the growing cluster near Los Angeles International Airport. Funding and A West Coast push. The headquarters news dropped the same day Hermeus revealed a $350 million financing round led by Khosla Ventures that pegs the company's value at about $1 billion, according to the Los Angeles Times. The paper reports Hermeus has now raised roughly $500 million in equity and debt, including a $100 million round led by Sam Altman in 2022, as it races to get hardware in the air. CEO AJ Piplica told the Los Angeles Times the startup has pulled in engineering talent from SpaceX while it builds toward a faster, more iterative aircraft development cycle. The outlet also notes that Hermeus is keeping its 110,000-square-foot Atlanta facility as a production hub, even as the corporate center of gravity shifts west. Prototype flights and testing. On the flight-test front, Hermeus says its Quarterhorse Mk 2.1 flew out of Spaceport America in February and that the Federal Aviation Administration granted a Special Airworthiness Certificate for the vehicle, milestones the company frames as stepping stones toward supersonic flight, according to Hermeus. Company materials note the earlier Mk 1 made its first flight at Edwards Air Force Base in May 2025 as part of a rapid "build-and-fly" cadence intended to push the program toward ever higher speeds. Hermeus also runs a High Enthalpy Air-breathing Test, or HEAT, facility for engine testing in Jacksonville and plans to keep engineering offices in Hawthorne as it builds out its West Coast footprint, according to Hermeus. What it means for El Segundo. In El Segundo, Hermeus has started moving into space at Hackman Capital Partners' 888 North Douglas campus and is expected to take full occupancy early next year, the Los Angeles Times reports. Commercial real-estate coverage from Commercial Observer puts the lease at about 62,552 square feet, highlighting the campus's growing appeal for defense-tech outfits like Varda and its peers. City officials have been quick to welcome the company, and developers say the local operation is expected to add more than 200 jobs next year as Hermeus scales up prototypes and support teams. Why officials say the South Bay matters. El Segundo's mayor has said the city actively helped market the site and embraced Hermeus' decision, pointing to a broader cluster of more than 40 aerospace and tech companies that have gravitated to the South Bay. Hackman Capital, which converted the former Northrop Grumman complex into modern offices, has poured money into making the campus a magnet for hardware-heavy tenants, and brokers argue the Hermeus lease is one more sign the area is regaining its status as a serious hardware and manufacturing corridor. For locals, that means keeping an eye out for job postings, construction and permitting activity, and test-flight chatter as Hermeus tries to knit together operations in El Segundo, its Atlanta production line, and its Jacksonville test center into one high-speed ecosystem.

Hermeus scaling for national security missions with $350 million financing round. Tuesday, April 7th, 2026 Hermeus, which has conducted two successful flight tests of prototype unmanned aircraft on a path to supersonic flight, on Tuesday said it closed $350 million in Series C financing that will be used to shift into production and integrate customer payloads. The round was led by Khosla Ventures and consists of $200 million in equity and $150 million in debt. Hermeus has shifted its headquarters from Atlanta to El Segundo, Calif., where it is expanding its prototyping footprint. The Atlanta... Not a subscriber or registered user yet? Please contact us at [email protected] or call us at 888-707-5814 (Monday - Thursday 9:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. and Friday 9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. ET.), to start a free trial, get pricing information, order a reprint, or post an article link on your website.