Hermeus

Company research

Public company, workplace, funding, and market signals

Updated Jul 29, 2026

Overview

Hermeus is a venture-backed defense aviation company that designs, builds, and tests high-Mach and hypersonic unmanned aircraft for national security missions. Its platform strategy centers on Quarterhorse for rapid flight testing, Darkhorse for reusable hypersonic UAS missions, and Chimera as the hybrid turbine/ramjet engine that powers the roadmap.

Primary product

Quarterhorse unmanned high-speed aircraft platform

Founded

2018

Headquarters

El Segundo / Los Angeles area, California, United States (new HQ announced in 2026; Atlanta remains a major production/ops site)

Team size

200-500

Work style

Onsite

Industry

Aviation and Aerospace Component Manufacturing

Sub-industry

Hypersonic defense aviation / high-speed aircraft

Offices

El Segundo, CA, United States

Los Angeles, CA, United States

Atlanta, GA, United States

Jacksonville, FL, United States

Washington, DC, United States

Hawthorne, CA, United States

Business model

government contracts

defense aviation hardware manufacturing

R&D and prototyping

Funding

Stage

Series C

Total raised

$566M

Latest round

Series C · Apr 2026

Latest amount

$350M

Debt

Apr 2026 · Hercules Capital / Pinegrove Capital Partners / Silicon Valley Bank / Trinity Capital

$150M

Series C

Apr 2026 · Khosla Ventures

$350M

Grant-IV

Aug 2025 · U.S. Air Force

$1.3M

Unattributed VC

Aug 2024

Phase II SBIR award

Aug 2024 · Department of Defense (Space Development Agency)

$1.2M

Strategic investment

May 2022 · RTX Ventures

Series B

Mar 2022 · Sam Altman

$100M

Series A

Oct 2020 · Canaan Partners

$16M

Seed

May 2019 · Khosla Ventures

People & investors

Leadership

AJ Piplica

Executive Chairman / Co-Founder

Zach Shore

Chief Executive Officer

Steve Furger

Chief Technology Officer

Sameer Rao

Chief Financial Officer

Ramin Nader

VP, Finance

Tim Hampton

VP, Information & Security

Founders

Glenn Case

Founder

Michael Smayda

Co-founder and Chief Product Officer

Mike Smayda

Founder

Skyler Shuford

Founder

Investors

Work & culture

Hermeus describes itself as a high-ownership, fast-moving organization with a breakneck development pace and intense build cycles. Public career materials emphasize teamwork, speed, ownership, and grit.

Work style

Onsite

Visa sponsorship

Compensation

Public postings show engineering salaries around $95k-$140k and $110k-$140k for some roles. Third-party salary data reports a median total compensation around $147.9k, with reported roles ranging from roughly $99.5k for recruiters to $163.2k for aerospace engineers.

Benefits

100% premium coverage for health, dental, and vision for employees and dependents

3 months paid parental leave

stock options

401(k) and retirement plans

unlimited PTO for exempt employees

generous accrued PTO for non-exempt employees

12 federal holidays

free weekly lunches

dog-friendly offices

commuter benefits

Product & market

Pricing

Custom government/defense contract pricing; public product pricing is not disclosed.

Differentiators

—hardware-first, rapid iterative prototyping
—unmanned high-Mach and hypersonic aircraft focus
—Quarterhorse test program that incrementally de-risks the platform
—Chimera hybrid turbine/ramjet engine architecture
—close partnership with U.S. defense customers
—first privately developed unmanned supersonic jet milestone
—emphasis on scaling from prototyping to mission-ready aircraft

Technology

Ansys

Siemens NX

Siemens Teamcenter

Jira Service Management

Microsoft 365

Linux

LabVIEW

Kubernetes

Git

Python

SQL

React

Terraform

SolidWorks

AutoCAD

ArcGIS

Mulesoft

Oracle

OpenAI

VMware

Customers

U.S. Department of War / Department of Defense

Defense Innovation Unit (DIU)

U.S. Air Force

U.S. Navy

other U.S. government and national security customers

Competitors

Boom Supersonic

Venus Aerospace

Destinus

Lockheed Martin

Northrop Grumman

Scale & contact

Estimated revenue

$1M-$10M (LinkedIn estimate; exact public revenue not disclosed)

Estimated monthly visits

38.5K

Traffic estimate as of Jul 2026

info@hermeus.com 470-223-4927

Latest news

Hermeus Appoints Sameer Rao as Chief Financial Officer

Hermeus · Jul 2026

Appointed Sameer Rao as CFO as the company scales after the Series C and recent flight-test milestones.

Hermeus Scales DIU Contract to $219M to Demonstrate High-Mach Flight for Department of War

Hermeus · May 2026

Added a $159M DIU contract modification, bringing the total ceiling to $219M for high-Mach flight and payload-release demonstrations with U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy support.

Hermeus Achieves Its First Unmanned Supersonic Flight

Hermeus · May 2026

Quarterhorse Mk 2.1 reached Mach 1.21 on its third test flight, marking the company’s first unmanned supersonic flight.

Hermeus Achieves Its First Unmanned Supersonic Flight

Hermeus · May 2026

Quarterhorse Mk 2.1 became the world’s first privately developed unmanned supersonic jet, marking a major milestone in the company’s flight-test roadmap.

Hermeus Announces Executive Leadership Transition; Zach Shore Named CEO, AJ Piplica Remains Executive Chairman

Hermeus · May 2026

Zach Shore became CEO effective June 1, 2026, while AJ Piplica moved to Executive Chairman.

Jobs and careers at Hermeus

88 jobs at Hermeus

Network Engineer

On-site

Internal Operations

Los Angeles, CA; Atlanta, GA

1d ago

On-site

Full-time