The US Department of Defense has awarded California-based Furientis its first funded government contract to develop a 100-mile-range (160-kilometer-range) interceptor designed for mass production.
The prototyping agreement will fund development and flight testing to demonstrate the interceptor’s performance against department requirements.
The contract comes as the company seeks to address a challenge facing the US defense industry: producing enough interceptors to meet demand without relying on costly manufacturing processes.
“Recent events have shown these threats are not theoretical, and the US is genuinely running low on the systems that protect the American people,” CEO Brody Franzen said.
Furientis did not disclose the contract’s value and timeline, but said that the new funding will support operations at its Los Angeles office.
The company also announced a $25-million seed round led by Benchmark, with general partner Chetan Puttagunta joining its board.
Furientis’ Interceptor Production Approach
Furientis designs its interceptors around how quickly and cheaply they can be built, rather than maximizing performance at any cost. This comes as the Pentagon seeks lower-cost interceptors that can be produced in larger numbers as demand for air and missile defense grows.
The company’s stated production target is 1,000 interceptors per factory each year, with final assembly taking less than an hour per vehicle.
To reach that target, Furientis plans to use commercial off-the-shelf components when they meet requirements and make key components in-house, including solid rocket motors and seekers. The approach is intended to reduce dependence on specialized suppliers and make production easier to scale.
Furientis also said it tests prototypes roughly every two weeks, using flight results to guide design changes rather than spending years on design before flying hardware.