Exclusive: Hermeus co-founder has a mysterious new defense startup
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Skyler Shuford, a Hermeus co-founder, has a new startup, Reaxiomatic. He's keeping much of it out of the public eye.
The big picture: Reaxiomatic is dedicated to aerospace and defense, Shuford confirmed in an interview. It could easily be associated with the growing American reindustrialization and supply-chain-awareness crowds.
- "At Hermeus, we built an organization that can design, build and fly brand-new jets from scratch in about a year, which is about eight times faster than any near-peers. A similar playbook can, and must, be applied to other critical defense systems," Shuford told Axios.
- "I think a lot of companies may be hamstringing themselves or distracting themselves by trying to be dual-use too early."
Driving the news: Reax will on Wednesday announce a $7.25 million pre-seed led by Scout Ventures and NVP Capital. (Bling Capital participated.) Shuford said his startup's "prototype product" will be shown off "within the scope of this round."
- Exactly what that product is remains a mystery to outsiders. The money will also be used to build out the team.
- "Most hardware companies might be demonstrating a subsystem or something minor," he said. "I want to under-promise and over-deliver."
Between the lines: Reax has a hangar and office space in San Diego. That provides it plenty of room for big projects — or what Shuford calls "heavy attritables for critical defense infrastructure."
Friction point: The Defense Department is often chided for its unwieldiness. Bureaucracy slows progress, project asks bloat, prices creep up, and when kit finally arrives, it's roasted for being outdated or unnecessary.
The bottom line: "When I look at challenges that the department faces, a lot of people are looking at it through the lens of 'we need to get more technology to the warfighter.' I, actually, don't think that's true," Shuford said.
- "A multiyear bureaucratic process didn't tell the world that RC planes dragging fiber-optic cables was the right architecture in Ukraine. It was tight cycles, fast improvement, available hardware, doubling down on what works ... and ripping out what doesn't," he added.
- "That philosophy needs to scale up. That's what we're doing at Reax."
Go deeper: Defense-tech diversifies as "voracious" investors pour in
