Hermeus Raises Seed Funding from Khosla Ventures and Announces Advisory Board
May 13, 2019
Hermeus Corporation, a startup increasing the speed of air transportation by developing hypersonic aircraft, today announced a Seed round investment. The round was led by Khosla Ventures, with additional participation from private investors. The financing will further the development and test of Hermeus' hypersonic propulsion system.
“Hermeus is developing an aircraft that not only improves the aviation experience with very reduced flight times, but also has the potential to have great societal and economic impact." said Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures.
“We’ve set out on a journey to revolutionize the global transportation infrastructure, bringing it from the equivalent of dial-up into the broadband era, by radically increasing the speed of travel over long distances.” said co-founder and CEO AJ Piplica. “We’re excited to work with Khosla Ventures to turn this vision into reality.”
The Hermeus founders consist of alumni from SpaceX and Blue Origin. Additionally, all four worked together at Generation Orbit, where AJ Piplica served as CEO and Glenn Case, Mike Smayda, and Skyler Shuford served as technical directors. While there, they led the development of the X-60A, a hypersonic rocket-plane and the Air Force’s newest X-Plane.
Hermeus has also proudly announced a Board of Advisors, consisting of highly experienced professionals spanning high-technology aerospace, private and commercial aviation, and regulatory arenas. Collectively, these advisors help define the Hermeus strategy with respect to safety, markets, technology, and development in order to accelerate innovation in aviation and connect the globe. Board members include:
Rob Meyerson - Former President, Blue Origin
Rob Weiss - Former EVP/GM Lockheed Martin Skunk Works
Keith Masback - Former CEO, US Geospatial Intelligence Foundation; Director, Source Operations, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency; Director, ISR Integration, US Army.
Katerina Barilov - Founder, Sparkplug capital+ and Managing Director, Shearwater Aero Capital
Dr. George Nield - Former Associate Administrator, FAA
Mitch Free - Founder and CEO, ZYCI and Former Director of Technical Operations, Northwest Airlines
Hermeus founders and advisors (left to right): Glenn Case (founder), Rob Weiss, Katerina Barilov, Mitch Free, Keith Masback, Rob Meyerson, AJ Piplica (founder), Dr. George Nield, Mike Smayda (founder), Skyler Shuford (founder)
Rob Meyerson had this to say, “With experience from the best of NewSpace companies, the Hermeus team is well positioned to disrupt the hypersonics industry.”
“I think we have a first-class team - Hermeus and advisors,” said Rob Weiss. “It seems to me if there’s a team that can achieve this big goal, it’s Hermeus.”
ABOUT HERMEUS
Hermeus is a venture-backed startup with the long-term vision of transforming the global human transportation network with Mach 5 aircraft. At Mach 5, travel is not just supersonic, it's hypersonic. At these speeds – over 3,000 miles per hour – flight times from New York to London will be 90 minutes rather than seven hours. Mach 5 aircraft have the potential to create an additional four trillion dollars of global economic growth per year, unlocking significant resources that can be utilized to solve the world’s great problems.
Contact: info@hermeus.com