Furientis lands $25M from Benchmark to mass-produce low-cost missile interceptors

Benchmark is leading a $25 million seed financing into Furientis, a Los Angeles–based startup focused on producing lower-cost interceptor missiles at scale. Founded roughly a year ago, Furientis has already secured a funded contract from the Pentagon to build mid-range interceptors and follows a $5 million pre-seed round disclosed in May.

Furientis’s co-founders bring aerospace and rocket-engine experience: Brody Franzen previously served as deputy chief engineer at Virgin Galactic and worked at hypersonic startup Castelion, while Aris Simsarian led rocket-engine testing at Virgin Orbit. The founders say the company’s approach prioritizes speed and affordability by assembling systems from commercially available components rather than pursuing top-tier performance at high unit cost.

The company reports frequent field testing, conducting launches roughly every two weeks and taking prototypes to White Sands, New Mexico, from its Los Angeles facility. Furientis aims to eventually produce 1,000 systems per year at each factory, though it is still ramping out manufacturing and operations.

The financing and interest in Furientis reflect broader shifts in defense investing and procurement. U.S. missile inventories have been pressured after recent conflicts, and startups that can deliver interceptors quickly and cheaply have attracted venture attention. Benchmark general partner Chetan Puttagunta noted Furientis’s rapid progress after a modest pre-seed, and other defense firms including Anduril, Castelion, and Shield AI are also pursuing higher-rate production of interceptors alongside legacy primes seeking to modernize production cycles.