You read it here first, and now the company has finally confirmed it: Cambridge Aerospace — the startup aiming to build low-cost, scaled air defences against drones and missiles — today announced that it has closed a Series C round of funding of $300 million at a valuation of $3.4 billion, led by DFJ Growth.
It also quietly confirmed that it raised $200 million in a Series B earlier this year at a $1.3 billion valuation, tallying up to around $636 million in funding including previous raises, and a major boost to its valuation in the space of a few months.
The startup, founded in 2024, said that it is using the funding to continue scaling its business: more talent, ramping up manufacturing and more R&D.
The funding, valuation and lead investor are the same details that we scooped nearly a month ago.
Cambridge Aerospace’s fundraise and business activity are indicative of the current shift in thinking around interceptors.
Countries are looking for better, scaled systems that they can put in place against adversaries that are showing signs of being increasingly aggressive with drones and longer-range missiles, and they are looking to source these from sovereign supply chains that are either located in their own countries or those of very close allies.
The dire cost of not having adequate defences in these cases was laid bare earlier this month in a major attack on Kyiv from Russia.
Cambridge Aerospace is not alone in addressing this need: other companies like Auterion have identified and are building for it. Investors say Cambridge Aerospace stands out because of its ambition and achievements so far.
“Cambridge Aerospace is solving one of the most pressing challenges of modern warfare,” said Randy Glein, DFJ Growth founder and managing partner, said in a statement. “They have developed an affordable and accurate counter UAS system for eliminating the inbound threats and battlefield chaos caused by low-cost aerial attack drones. We surveyed the global landscape and identified Cambridge as having the best team and technology to build the most advanced and modern air defense infrastructure for Europe and its allies.”
We reported in July that Cambridge Aerospace has about $5 billion of deals in the pipeline right now with $140 million in signed contracts. The company did not say anything about current deal value nor revenues in the emailed announcement today (we are trying to find out more).
In terms of active customers, Cambridge Aerospace says it is working on “several contracts” in the UK. These include the provision of low-cost interceptors for the country’s military, announced earlier this year. Alongside the UK, the company also noted that it has “a presence” in Germany, Poland, Norway, Ukraine, and Australia. It is not clear if those countries are also active customers.
Cambridge Aerospace entered the market with some velocity from the beginning, not least because of who started it.
Its co-founders are CEO Steven Barrett, a high-flying aerospace engineering researcher formerly at MIT and now based at Cambridge University; CCO Chris Sylvan, a former Anduril executive, who left the neo-prime to build Cambridge Aerospace; the investor and serial co-founder Junaid Hussain; and – a little controversially – former UK defence secretary Grant Shapps (who stepped down as chair in May 2026).
The startup has announced four products to-date: Skyhammer, a low-cost, modular interceptor for Shahed-type attack drones that is already in the market; Starhammer, a high-speed interceptor for higher-value missiles due to be released in 2027; Looking Glass, a multistatic radar system; and Nightstar, sovereign-built solid rocket motors. There are no dates attached to the latter two – we are asking.
Today’s news is a big valuation leap for Cambridge Aerospace, but up to now, it has been slow in confirming many details of its fundraising activity.
Before launching a single product, Cambridge Aerospace — on stage at Resilience Conference last autumn — confirmed a never-before named investor, Never Lift, and that it had raised $136 million across three previous funding rounds.
Today, it additionally confirmed that it actually also raised $200 million in a Series B round in April, with Elad Gil & Co and Spark Capital as co-leads, at a $1.3 billion valuation. That round was rumoured but had never been verified on the record by the company. Elad Gil’s firm also participated in this latest Series C.
Others in addition to DFJ and Elad Gil & Co in this round include Lux, Accel, Lakestar, Never Lift and Ora Global. Tallying up the three, it’s now raised at least $636 million.
“This raise is testament to the incredible work of the entire Cambridge Aerospace team,” Barrett said in a statement today about the latest round. “By bringing together the best talent in the world with a singular mission to protect Allied skies from threats we have achieved a huge amount already. The addition of these funds will allow us to continue to scale our manufacturing and our delivery to meet the pace of threats, and the needs of Allied nations.”
