Latest news with #X-Bow
Axios
12-05-2025
- Business
- Axios
Exclusive: X-Bow and Lockheed collaborating amid $105 million raise
Lockheed Martin is fast-tracking X-Bow Systems as a new, independent supplier of solid-rocket motors and other services, the defense upstart's CEO, Jason Hundley, told Axios. Why it matters: "The Lockheed Martin Corporation, I will say, is one of the largest producers and procurers of solid-rocket motors in Western civilization," he said in an interview. Lockheed, also the world's largest defense contractor by revenue, "does not enter these agreements lightly, is what we understand," he added. "They get their choice of investments in these areas." The latest: The arrangement coincides with the closure of X-Bow's Series B funding round at a little more than $105 million. Investors include Razor's Edge Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Balerion Space Ventures and Capital Factory Ventures. Lockheed Martin Ventures and Boeing Ventures were early backers, as well. Between the lines: X-Bow (pronounced crossbow) is among a handful of fresh SRM competitors in the U.S. The cadre's breakout comes as pricey munitions are expended across the world and the Pentagon sweats industrial health back home. State of play: X-Bow is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and is building an energetics campus near Austin, Texas. It will open soon. The company also offers a "rocket factory in a box" for distributed, on-demand production. Its approximately 300 employees include SpaceX alumni. Context: X-Bow has inked contracts across the military and, Hundley said, "all the services are ... experiencing the same pinch point at the same time." "We've been focused on two factors for the last several years: scale and affordability," he said. The company was previously tapped for work tied to the Army's Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon and the Navy's Conventional Prompt Strike.
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
X-Bow Assembles Powerhouse Advisory Board to Fuel Growth
Influential Leaders from Military, Government, and Industry to Guide X-Bow's Expansion ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., March 25, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- X-Bow Systems Inc (X-Bow), the leading non-traditional producer of advanced solid rocket motors (SRMs) and defense technologies, today announced the formation of its Strategic Advisory Board, which will provide strategic counsel and support the company's continued growth and maturation. The advisory board members include: Vice Admiral (USN-Ret.) Terry Benedict, former Director of the Navy's Strategic Systems Programs, and President of Systems Planning & Analysis. Major General (USSF-Ret.) John M. Olson, PhD, former Mobilization Assistant to the Chief of Space Operations, United States Space Force, and President and Chief Executive Officer of AXIONS Corporation. Major General (USAF-Ret.) Garrett Harencak, former Commander of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center, and President of Harencak Consulting LLC. Michael E. White, AIAA Fellow, and former DoD Principal Director for Hypersonics. Preston Dunlap, Founder and CEO of Arkenstone Capital and Arkenstone Ventures, and former Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Space Force and Air Force. Colonel (USAF-Ret.) Sean McKay, former program manager for various DOD, Foreign Military Sales, and Intelligence Community activities, and CEO and founder of Precision ISR. J. Jeffrey Irons, retired aerospace and defense consultant and founder of ironSclad Solutions, Inc. Dr. Marco Villa, Founding Partner of Ceresio Consulting and former executive at Terran Orbital Corporation and SpaceX. Steve Pann, Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Razor's Edge Ventures, and former CIA Science and Technology Officer. These renowned defense and private sector leaders, with extensive backgrounds in national security, technology, and international relations, will provide guidance on X-Bow's strategic growth efforts. "We are honored to welcome such an accomplished group of advisors – a true powerhouse of expertise – to the team," said Jason Hundley, CEO of X-Bow. "Their collective experience and insights will be instrumental as we continue to grow both at home and abroad." The addition of former government and military leaders underscores X-Bow's unwavering commitment to supporting the Department of Defense (DoD) and its vital mission. Since its inception in 2016, X-Bow has closely collaborated with the military on its evolving requirements for energetics, munitions and SRMs and the missions they could support. The company's strategic advisors will further deepen X-Bow's understanding of DoD and global requirements and demands and strengthen its ability to deliver on the needs of the mission and the defense industrial base. About X-Bow SystemsX-Bow Systems is disrupting the aerospace industry with innovative and cost-effective advanced manufactured energetics for the solid rocket motor and launch vehicle market. X-Bow is also designing and building a suite of modular solid rocket motors and small launch vehicles for both orbital and suborbital launch services. X-Bow is led by CEO Jason Hundley, Chairman Mark Kaufman, CTO Max Vozoff, CRO Maureen Gannon, General Counsel John Leary, COO Mike Bender and a growing team of seasoned industry veterans and new space entrepreneurs. X-Bow is a dual-use technology company with investment from: Crosslink Capital, Razor's Edge Ventures, Balerion Space Ventures, Boeing, Arkenstone Capital, The Capital Factory, and Lockheed Martin Ventures. Headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, X-Bow has additional presence in California, Alabama, Colorado, Texas, Utah, Maryland and Washington, DC. For more information visit View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE X-Bow Systems
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Mountain time: Counting down to the 2025 Bathurst 12 Hour
The Bathurst 12 Hour may not boast the number of manufacturers of Daytona or Le Mans, but what it does have is a classic 3.86 mile/6.213km circuit that many internationals rate as the best on the world. This year's event does not even have a huge grid, but it just may be the last showdown between the three German makes that have dominated the event. Since the race switched from a production car format to GT3 regulations in 2011, Mercedes-Benz and Audi each have three 12 Hour wins and Porsche has two. Each make is, in their own way, pushing hard for another win – and so is BMW, which ironically won the last production car 12 Hour in 2010. There is a slightly different look to this year's 23-car entry list, down seven from a year ago. Some of the names of regular 12 Hour drivers are missing, including Christopher Mies, the Vanthoor brothers, and Christopher Haase. But numbers are not much shorter in the 'outright' class; 19 GT3 entries is close to the average. Where the entries have fallen away is in the Invitational and GT4 classes, which appear to be victims of their own recent expansion in Australia. The fleet of locally-made IRC or MARC cars that have bulked out Class I now have their own series down under and many competitors have opted for more, shorter races, rather than one long (and expensive) one. In GT4, providing they make the finish, all three entries are guaranteed 'podium' results, while KTM has the Invitational Class to its own with its X-Bow. Another factor in the smaller field may be the Australian GT3 competitors which are skipping the 12 Hour and participating in Middle Eastern events, which fall in the same calendar quarter, instead. Separate to that there is a view that the 2025 12 Hour is something of a watershed event – perhaps the last one in which Audi, a long-term supporter of the event, will be competitive, as the manufacturer's focus fully shifts to Formula 1. Through the other door, there is already talk that the 2026 12 Hour may feature the likes of Chevrolet's Corvette GT3.R (possibly in a link with Supercars team Triple 8, which has run Mercedes-Benzes in past 12 Hours) and Ford's Mustang GT3. The entry list may be smaller but the quality looks high. Porsche won a tense 2024 12 Hour and two 911GT3Rs line up in Class A (for GT3 cars). Double 12 Hour winner and Porsche Penske Motorsport IMSA SportsCar Championship driver Matt Campbell, Ayhcancan Güven and Alessio Picariello line up in the lead Absolute Racing entry, while Bathurst rookies and rising Porsche stars Laurin Heinrich and Morris Schuring join Bronze drivers Sam and Yasser Shahin in the Manthey entry, which won the Pro Am class last year. Last year Güven was the anchor driver in the race-winning Porsche 911 GT3R, driving 127 laps and running just as fast as his more experienced co-driver Campbell, who did 99 laps but completed the vital final stint. Look for much of the same this year. The 2025 Bathurst 12 Hours is likely to be the last time an Audi has a shot at overall victory against its German rivals on the Mountain. Audi Media Canter And the Porsche has what could be considered 'sneaky speed' at Bathurst, a track with a long uphill straight and an even longer one downhill. Campbell, who finished third overall at last weekend's Rolex 24 at Daytona, may have qualified 'only' sixth last year but the winners led 195 laps out of 275 laps a year ago. For 75 Express, the script looks the same; by entering a Mercedes-Benz AMG GT3 Evo in the Pro class, team owner Kenny Habul gets to sidestep the minimum laps he would be required to complete as a Bronze driver. Getting his laps done early leaves Luca Stolz and Jules Gounon to chase, respectively, a third and fourth Bathurst 12 Hour win. Mercedes-Benz's other contenders look like GruppeM with the eternally-unlucky-at Bathurst Maro Engel, Mikaël Grenier and Maxime Martine, and Craft-Bamboo's trio of Lucas Auer, Maxy Götz and rising Supercars driver Jayden Ojeda. Scott Taylor Motorsport is running its usual trio of Supercars drivers in Craig Lowndes, Cameron Waters and Thomas Randle; at 50, could Lowndes, a seven-time Bathurst 1000, be looking for a final win at the Mountain? Audi's hopes of a fourth 12-Hour win were significantly boosted 10 days out from the event. Up to that point the Pro Am entry of Bathurst 1000 winner Lee Holdsworth, Dean Fiore, and Marc Cini looked to be the best hope until Melbourne-based Melbourne Performance Centre/Audi Customer Sport Racing confirmed a second entry, in the Pro class, for Supercars ace Broc Feeney, reigning GT World Challenge Australia champion Liam Talbot and 2024 Nürburgring 24 Hour winner Ricardo Feller. Team WRT has entered an impressive lineup in its BMW M4 GT3s. Valentino Rossi has swept away any notions that he would be less competitive on four wheels than he was on two with a stellar performance in last year's race, and the Italian legend has already nominated Bathurst as one of his favorite circuits. Raffaele Marciello and Charles Weerts will share the No. 46 entry, while the No. 32 will feature the van der Linde brothers Kelvin and Sheldon share the driving with Augusto Farfus. If any make can upset the notion of a German win, it could be Ferrari. Arise Racing GT may not have a high profile on the global scene but in a short space of time the Perth-based team has set some high achievements, including winning the 2024 Australian title with Talbot. Its Pro 296 GT3 entry matches Risi Competizione regular Daniel Serra with Supercars Champion Will Brown and Chaz Mostert, and in the second, Pro Am entry, AF Corse regular Alessio Rovera and Supercars driver Jaxon Evans join Bronze drivers Brad Schumacher and Elliot Schutte. There is a change in the event's qualifying format this year, with the grid to be determined by two 30-minute sessions on Saturday February 1 that will be split into the slower and faster groups before the top 10 grid positions are determined by the 15-minute Pirelli Pole Battle, set for 4:05pm AEDT (12:05am ET). The race will commence at its traditional time of 5:45am local time on Sunday February 2 (1:45pm ET on Saturday February 1). Story originally appeared on Racer
