Will Edwards, Firehawk Aerospace | theCUBE + NYSE Wired: Defense Tech

Palo Alto Studio Connection Silicon Valley and Wall Street. I'm John Fost here with Dave Volante, my co-host. Hello, I'm John Furry with the Cube. We are here in the Cubes NYC studio. Of course, we have our PaloAlto studio connecting Silicon Valley to Wall Street. This is the NYC wired programming communities defense tech series we just started. There's a lot of interest in how physical AI and how some of the digital and physical things are coming together that's powering a lot of the defense the warfare the war battlefield and also how decisions are made. AI is a big part of it but also the physical piece of it is our next guest is here to talk about Will Edwards CEO of Firehawk Aerospace innovative approach again another example of the speed game we're seeing in this era. Will thanks for coming on the cube. Appreciate it. >> Thank you so much for having me. >> You know I love love what you do. I want you to explain what you guys do as a business, but specifically you guys have really cracked the code on uh speed to market, which I think is a huge and the numbers are pretty big. So share what you're working on. >> Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, Firehawk has a few products, but at our core, the thing that we really innovated on was the production of rocket propellant. That's about a 15 to 60 day process typically that requires pieces of equipment that are cost tens of millions of dollars and a lot of people working on it. Uh we've cut that process down to about 6 hours by changing how you actually make the propellant, what the end result is. So instead of having this liquid resin that's uh mixed in a giant KitchenAid mixer for several hours and then it has to bake for several weeks, we just make this unbelievably energetic pellet that is storeable. And then from there we can advance manufacture that little pellet and make artillery motors. We can make small diameter missile motors. We can make rocket assisted takeoff motors. But it's extremely cheap, uh, extremely efficient and and much much safer than traditional processes. And our vision was if you can control the source of the propellant production, then you can go upstream, you can build the motors, and then you can build the full rocket systems. >> So you crack the code on the supply side on the propellant, then go in and custom make that for the actual product. >> Exactly. So we've been flying rockets with our with our customers. We are providing uh different motors to uh again some of our partners and you know next year we should be the third biggest producer of propellant in the country. >> That's awesome. What kind of results you seeing? Take us through some examples. I know you had recent uh wins but what's some of the results on the product itself? Are people like wow that looks just as good if not better than the than the previous generation? >> Absolutely. I mean so for for one of our products like artillery motors we should be the biggest producer of little motors for artillery rounds in the country next year and we are seeing significant one volume increase in the production of them uh but also we should be able to cut prices quite a bit and so we formed a really strong relationship with General Dynamics. We're working with them directly to assist them in in what they're building out at Mosquite with their M1128 rounds and it's just it's an incredible market that that really needs to be served and and we're excited to partner with such a great company. >> You know, technology always impacts every vertical. Obviously in the defense tech, Department of War there, you know, there's challenges. Old school Patriot missiles kind of like get taken out by drones. Yeah. um these new warfare techniques and you know I was talking to a group of investors and entrepreneurs here at the New York Stock Exchange a couple months ago and the the narrative was we don't have enough munitions. >> Absolutely. >> So because the people are firing everything 10,000 zillion drones >> coming in they blow all their >> big weaponry Yeah. >> out [laughter] on these little I call them the the Kmart drones, right? They're like cheap. They're but they're you know they're small and they're inexpensive. So you're having high value cost rockets. >> Y >> taking out cheap stealth weird drones. >> Absolutely. >> People see that all the time. >> So the game's changed. You now can meet that demand. Help meet that demand. >> Yeah. And that's actually why we bought a 636 acre rocket facility in Mississippi. We're able to make 40,000 small diameter lowcost rockets. Uh and those are designed for counter drones. Um it's it's it's huge. So we're actually working to expand that facility to where we can make a 100 plus thousand of these rockets a year instead of tens of thousands. >> But yeah, I mean when you look at it, the really you need high volume, lowcost systems, those are the systems that are really really difficult to make sometimes. And the way Firehawk produces its propellant is just perfect for making these systems. >> You know, I love innovation like this because it reminds me of when I was growing up. You had the main frames and you had the personal computer. their computers but one's smaller than the other. The revolution happened. It's very innovative for me. You had an approach that no one was taking. You saw things differently. So the big monolithic expensive process and manufacturing but propellant you essentially bring it down to like I won't say offtheshelf but like low cost compared and now the results are the same. So you're you're different. So take take us through that journey. You must have been misunderstood for a long time because most people don't see the new thing coming. the old guard. We were like, whoa, what's how did that happen? Yeah, you're just >> that came out of nowhere. Explain the story because I think this is an example of why American manufacturing people are that are thinking differently about things are making it happen. >> Yeah. So, you know, we really got started in 2019 with the idea that you can make rocket propellant a different way. You don't have to use what the traditional binder HTPB. You don't need those giant mixers. You don't need ovens. And so for for years and years we were known as like sort of the the weird people walking around with Lego plastic saying we can make rocket fuel out of this or rocket propellant. Um and so the industry didn't accept that because you know it's two reasons. One there they these people have decades of tribal knowledge. They've learned how to make propellant the way they do it and in a lot of cases it is the right way to do it that way. Uh but at the same time these companies have billions of dollars of infrastructure and then billions of dollars of backlog to meet. So and this infrastructure is again the way we made rockets 40 40 years ago. So they didn't really have the flexibility to pivot and start producing in a new way like we did as a smaller company. So we were, you know, I would say very misunderstood. And then to be honest earlier on when we were were saying, "Hey, we want to be a propellant producer." That didn't really interest a lot of these uh VCs because what they want to see at the end of the day is like, "Show me the full missile. Show me like the end product that everyone's going to shoot and we can paste it everywhere." The problem with that is where are you going to get your propellant at the end of the day? If you haven't scaled your propellant uh capacity as your own company, then you're just going to go wait in line at Orbital ATK or at Aererojet Rocket Dine to get their propellant because they're the only ones who've really scaled. >> It's kind of like Nvidia. If you don't have GPUs, you really can't do AI. >> Thank you. That's that's [laughter] actually one of the the things I've been saying to investors is like, we want to be the Nvidia defense because they're all these amazing new defense companies building these phenomenal systems. And I'm like, listen, we'll be the company that powers you, but at the same time, we're going to build our own missiles out of Mississippi as well. And we have great partners. And I I again what what it happens I'd love to get your vision of how you're going to execute because Nvidia was called the GPU company for many many years. U they're an AI infrastructure company. Yeah. Um they are not they have GPUs, they got inference, they got Vera, they got Reuben, they got networking with KV cache, they got Nemo. I mean they and they got the Omniverse. I mean Nvidia's got all these capabilities. So it sounds like you're kind of going down that route. So what's the vision? Because you already got the propellant scaled that you nailed that one. Now you're going upstream. Now you're making >> Yeah. >> the rockets. >> So it's sort of like Nvidia's story when you know when they were providing their product essentially for free because they wanted people to use them and then they realized that it's a platform that you can build on top of. So that's uh that's what Firehawk is doing. We're producing this propellant and our motors to integrate into these existing platforms that the government already needs, you know, hundreds of thousands of, some of them hundreds of thousands a month of. And so our vision is we'll provide the propellant, we'll provide you it in high volumes and at low cost. But again, since I have the Great Plains Arsenal in lot in Oklahoma, which will be the third biggest producer propellant in the country and then I have a huge facility in Mississippi that can make rockets, what we're really doing is we're supporting, we're merchant supplier to the people who are building the systems, but at the same time, we're taking everything that we know and learn and we're going to build our own rockets for other partners. And you know, our vision is we want to be a good partner to the rest of the industry. We let them build what they're going to build, figure out a way to ease their supply chain issues with our motors and propellant, and then at the same time, as we're tackling these markets, we're going to enter them as we continue to grow. And honestly, it's a it's a multi-billion dollar year opportunity for these small diameter systems that we're working on. >> You know, it's funny, we weaved in Nvidia, but you also got to add in the geopolitical scenario where in America, if you go back five years ago, there was not a lot of conversations around American manufacturing. Um yours is just another example of what we're seeing across the board. Yeah. Entrepreneurs innovating and not stuck in hey let's just build the factories the old way with robotics. >> Yeah. >> I mean there's unlimited opportunities for scaling and building out more things. Um so this is a great example. I love what you're doing. Take me through your culture. What's it like there? Now I'm sure you got a lot of people now that you're hitting escape velocity so to speak. What's it like at the culture? What kind of problems are you guys trying to solve? What's some of the business challenges? Lay it all out. >> You know what we found out is like uh until our facility in Oklahoma, which we'll start commissioning buildings in October, is done, uh that's the propellant facility. We don't have a uh demand issue by any means. We have a capacity issue. Uh it takes a lot to store the energetics, the amount of energetics we're producing. We need bunkers. We have to make sure we're doing everything by the book. Uh obviously, we get audited by the government to make sure we're doing things safe. So, we have a culture really focused on moving quickly. I mean, my team is working 6, seven days a week. Uh, that's what I love about these people is they love the problems they're working on. So, they can be out in West Texas flying rockets or testing motors uh on a weekend and it's just part of >> they're rocket scientists literally. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, like there it's just a culture of listen I'll say this, our motto is obey the steel. You know, if you're going to go to war, you must make your enemies obey the steel. So, we really want to make sure that we're providing something that America and America's allies need. And that's the real motivation for Fire because we've been told by the customers, we need more of these motors. We need more of these of these rocket systems. We're one of four companies named onto the Hydra 70 rocket second source uh OTAA. And these are things that they use every single day and they save lives if we have a lot of them. So, my team is very patriotic and just excited to be building. >> Yeah, it's great. Great stuff. Well, talk about uh reliability because you know in manufacturing is always the 59s. Um how does that look on on the results? Reliability is critical. >> Oh yeah. >> How do you guys stand on the reliability front? >> Well, we work very closely with all of our partners both in government and in industry to make sure that we're building everything towards spec. uh our processes have been thoroughly looked through by our partners and um to be honest we're meeting the performance metrics and in a lot of ways we're going to work to improve the performance metrics of existing systems. So think about like uh for artillery motors we'll meet that performance uh need >> but for small diameter rockets that travel 6 1/2 7 mi we have the flexibility by using different polymers using um our advanced manufacturing to actually extend the range of existing systems. So obviously first goal is meet safety and performance characteristics. But then after that since I have such a flexible assembly line that can turn on a dime in 24 hours I can go from making artillery motors to to missiles. Uh we can use that same flexibility to change the to change the ratios inside of our formulas and actually increase the performance of something that hasn't changed in 40 years. >> So you have a good good foundation on the product side. You have essentially continuous improvement in place. I mean because this doesn't sound like you have any challenges. It's more you meet the requirements, continuous improvement. You'll probably keep sharpening the saw on that one. What about the momentum? Can you share just u anecdotally because you guys really came out, worked hard, grinded it out, then you get the product hits, business starts kicking in. What's some stats? Can you share I mean as much as you can publicly what the momentum looks like and some of the stats? Yeah, I mean I I I wish I could share all the contracts that we're winning right now, but sadly like that's we're on tight lockdown. Even some of we've had some extremely successful uh uh firings with with different partners recently. Again, can't share that, but what we're seeing is the demand for the product is growing extensively. So, we're getting a lot of federal support. We're getting state and local support and then just plenty of investor interest because you know great planes you know in law in Oklahoma that propellant facility it'll be a national asset and then what we're doing in Crawford Mississippi we're increasing that from 40,000 rockets per year to 125,000. So and and that's not coming from our wish and hopes and dreams that these programs one day grow and turn into something. This is existing need with uh the capacity. It's just not being met. >> Okay. What's your plans going forward? What's your focus? What are you optimizing for? >> Uh volume and cost. We're looking to make the product as cheap as possible for our customers and make as much of it as we can. And then also just great partners. So really the I'm impressed with the primes are really leaning in. Even the the new like neo primes like the the 15 to 20 billion companies. They're really leaning in and looking to work with industry to help prop up these new companies. And I I couldn't be more bullish on defense tech. You know, I love this area because it's it it has tech involved. Um there's needs for it to have safety, but it's a generational shift. Share your perspective on the industry because you're seeing the new call them neo provider call next generation u uh creators and suppliers. You're seeing kind of SpaceX disrupted NASA. Everyone sees how great that was and there's other things there. But there's a new culture of innovators. >> Yeah. describe the dynamic because this is not your, you know, beltway bandits kind of situation where you got these contracts. There's still some big primes out there, but but and they have to do the big things, but there's still a new culture. We're seeing it uh in Silicon Valley. You're seeing it all over the US. >> Um it's technologists, engineering across all disciplines, physics and AI coming together in some most cases, but this is a new culture. Share your thoughts on that because I think this is really notable. Well, it's that so so there there are two major culture shifts that I've seen um even in the past like four years and one it's the primes want to lean in with the new companies and before that was not a thing. They would not do that. They would say we have our own process. We're sticking to this. But now you're seeing them deploy tons of capital and actually giving relatively large programs to these new companies. But at the same time it's private capital is leaning in. This is like uh this is like back in World War II when you're seeing all the like you know Ford industry and Kaiser put their money at risk to start building for the United States. Thank god I don't have to get on Twitter and see like a new e-commerce app or whatever. I every time I get on LinkedIn or social media I see a new nuclear company, a new missile company and it's all being backed by large family offices by the banks by the big VC firms >> and it's just it's exciting. The private market has reallyown brought a lot to bear >> and the government's leaning in. >> The government is leaning. This this administration has been absolutely terrific for these new companies to really prop themselves up over the years >> and it impacts the economy. I mean the jobs you're creating are huge. We're seeing this in robotics and I think also what is notable in the culture shift is that the manufacturing dogma of single assembly line >> build out the big monolithic thing. >> Yeah. >> You have multi-purpose capabilities. You just mentioned it. Robotics, you're seeing I can manufacturing one widget today that's like this. Maybe do something the next week here without refactoring much. >> Yeah, exactly. Like I mean we can change up uh our our assembly lines for a new product in 20 24 hours. Traditionally how they do it today, I mean that would require hundreds of millions of dollars and like it would go down for 6 months. So yeah, we're really bringing innovation, but we're we're getting to take parts from different industries like new, you know, the advancements happening in thermoplastics, in 3D printing, in uh extrusion technologies, in radar technologies. There's so much happening and so much money that's building up these new um industries that allow us to actually >> build the product cheaper and faster and work just as well. It's it's it's a team effort. You know, I want to I want to uh you to speak to the younger generation, some people that are in high school or college, because you know, I remember back in the day, even up until recently, maybe a decade ago, if you were a chemical engineer, you did that. If you were a mechanical engineer, you did that. If you were a double electrical engineer, you did that. Physics, you did some stuff over here, you could be a mechanical engineer or a chemist. You could work on some of these problems because of interdisciplinary needs. Absolutely. And so the people coming out of the uh those engineering programs whatever they are >> a lot of mechanicals go to the drones obviously but you're seeing people actually have huge growth opportunities >> and there wasn't a lot of huge opportunities for >> the kids coming out of college in those disciplines over the years. So now it's like >> not just defense tech you got robotic I mean the whole sector >> of physical AI is multi-disiplinary. So I know I see a lot of opportunity. I'm sure you agree. What's the message to that younger generation coming out? Because they're like, "Okay, I went to school for mechanical engineer. I went to XYZ school. Where do I look for jobs? Where do I go?" >> I mean, this is like so much right now. Like, we get hundreds of internship applications every single year. Uh, and and we we love having our interns here. So, one, try to get an internship while you're still in college. That's that's a great way. We've hired a lot of our interns ultimately. But two, like listen, if you're able to complete your engineering degree or or whatever discipline you're working in and then you're just excited to go work on robotics or AI or or rockets and propellant, uh these companies are eager to hire hungry people who are going to put in the time because, you know, the mission is is is greater than just building a huge business. Obviously, we want to do that, >> but it's supplying something that that the US desperately needs. So, we're finding these 20-year-old kids >> are loving that opportunity that they're working for the war fighter. And, you know, it's like artillery. I I'll go back to that's so important. Like that that's the most used system in Europe. They shot 16 million rounds in a year and a half. It's the most effective system to be used. And that's something that we just need more of. And and the more you have, this the safer you can protect the troops or the safer you can keep the troops. So, uh, >> save it for everyone, particularly countries. >> Um, great to have you on. Definitely follow up. Again, who doesn't like to build rockets or to work on anything do space? If you're an engineer, it's a great time to be in this market. >> We're going to be hiring a lot of people in Dallas and and Oklahoma and Mississippi and Alabama. So, come, we'd love to to hear from anyone. >> Tell them you saw this interview go right to the top of the list. Will, thank you so much. Congratulations on the on the entrepreneurial journey and your success. >> This is the Cube and the NYC Wired program. I'm John Furry, your host of the Cube. Defense tech. It's just physical AI happening right in front of us, but it's the techniques, it's the methodologies that are different for the modern era. That's what we're going to be telling more of these stories around. Thanks for having us.