Hermeus Corp. is the Blazer winner of the Hardware category in the Atlanta Inno Fire Awards, a program highlighting companies that showcase Atlanta's growth into a national tech hub.
This aerospace company is one step closer to achieving supersonic speed.
Hermeus raised $100 million in March to accelerate the development of two new prototypes aiming to create a passenger aircraft capable of Mach 5 speed. In the past year, it built a 110,000-square-foot factory in Doraville, conducted 100 engine tests, tested a full-scale proprietary Mach 5 engine and more than doubled its team.
Atlanta Inno spoke with CEO AJ Piplica about the company's growth.
How has your company navigated its operations during this current economic climate when investors are pulling back and some are making layoffs?
We secured our $100 million Series B just before fundraising tightened, so we’re in a strong cash position as we move toward the first flight of our aircraft. We’re continuing to grow as we execute on our current contracts and crank up our manufacturing.
Based on your experience, what would be your best advice to up-and-coming or aspiring entrepreneurs?
Aerospace is a difficult field, but building and scaling a company requires more than just engineering. Attracting great talent, maintaining an effective and positive culture, building scalable infrastructure, and pushing through external dependencies can end up being even more difficult than the engineering challenge at hand.
What are you doing to distinguish yourself from others in the same industry?
We don’t have much competition within our niche of hypersonic aircraft, but we are competing for the best engineering talent in the country. So we try to tell the story of a massively impactful mission — paired with a focused, rational, and incremental financial and technical roadmap — and a challenging yet supportive environment focused on building real things, not just talking about them. We do this through our podcast, social media, recruiting process, press, internship program and by completing company milestones.
What was the toughest decision you ever had to make in order to accelerate growth for your company?
There hasn’t been a single decision we can call the “toughest." It’s more about how all the decisions stack up and understanding that any given decision can have an unexpected ripple effect for the entire company — good or bad.
What’s next for your company?
Begin flight testing our first series of airplanes!
This interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
