A venture fund that works with President-elect Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr, is leading a $60 million series C investment in rocket motors and propellant startup Firehawk Aerospace, Forbes has learned.
It’s the first defense tech investment for 1789 Capital, which funds companies aligned with a conservative world view. The firm invested $15 million in the deal, which is expected to close this month with additional checks from Draper Associates, Boka Capital and others. The company declined to share the valuation, though a person close to the deal said it was valued at more than $200 million.
Dallas-based Firehawk says it has developed a safer, more stable rocket fuel using 3D printers and a hybrid engine to burn it, with the goal of replenishing a depleting U.S. arsenal. And it’s had early success securing contracts with the Pentagon and defense contractors. “There’s a missile shortage in the United States,” said Omeed Malik, 1789’s president. “This is part of a defense tech investment that enhances the security and competitiveness of the United States.”
The investment comes amid a growing wave of interest in new companies promising to restore America’s defense industrial base to its former glory. Startups like Palantir and Anduril have become behemoths by securing billions in government contracts selling military software and weapons. With obvious ties to the incoming Trump administration, 1789 is positioned to help push Firehawk’s government business.
The firm, which has raised more than $150 million for its first fund, is among a growing coterie of “anti-woke” investors whose investment thesis explicitly rejects progressive ideals like DEI and environmental, social and governance principles, known as ESG. Led by Malik and Chris Buskirk, who launched the Trump-donor group Rockbridge Network, it backs companies like Rumble and Substack it hopes will build a new “parallel economy” of conservative alternatives to what it says are liberal institutions. Another Firehawk investor, Point Bridge Capital, is best known for launching a “MAGA ETF” that it says it only invests “in companies that align with your Republican political beliefs.”
“My big investors in later stage happen to be politically outspoken,” Firehawk CEO Will Edwards told Forbes. But, he added, “we do have investors on the cap table who are pretty far left…there’s no motive beyond doing what’s best for our country, and our company.”
Edwards, a Forbes 30 Under 30 alum who previously started a now shuttered HR software startup called MetKnow, founded Firehawk in 2019 with family friend and scientist Ronald Jones to build cheaper, solid-state fuel burning rocket motors. At the time, they had trouble raising capital due to investor reluctance to back a defense startup working with the U.S. military. “I was called a murderer,” Edwards recalled. “Now they’ve changed their tune.”
Firehawk’s key innovation is 3D-printed solid rocket propellant that is cheaper and faster to make than traditional fuel. Rocket engine fuel — used for missiles and space rockets alike — is currently made using a process known as casting and curing, which can take as long as two months to produce; the method is currently used by defense primes like Northrup Grumman and L3 Harris. In its pitch deck, Firehawk claims that its fuel can be made within hours using an off-the-shelf 3D printer. And it can be made almost anywhere that can accommodate a 20 by 40 foot shipping container — including the battlefield.
After completing initial rocket tests at NASA’s Stennis Space Center, Firehawk raised $18 million in a series B led by Star Castle VC in 2022. The company announced in November that it had secured its own 30-square mile launch range in West Texas to serve as a testing range for contracts with the United States government, and other partners.
Edwards told Forbes the company generated “mid-seven figures” in revenue in 2024, and had “mid-eight figures” committed in secured deals, including a trial contract with the Army Applications Laboratory in January to develop new rocket engines for heavy weapons like the GMLRS rocket artillery and infantry weapons like the Javelin anti-tank and anti-aircraft Stinger missiles.
The company, which has partnered with Raytheon, has also run trials with the Air Force Research Laboratory and NASA. “Either Firehawk is going to be the company that makes 3D printing solid propellant the industry standard,” Edwards said, “or we’re going to shut our doors.”
