https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xqm08Bpwv1LXOsas-oVfZ5rDwp1lNqP8

❌ Problem

While Jacob was serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, Typhoon Haiyan had just swept through the Philippines. Jacob and his unit were given a clear order: deliver life-saving supplies of medicine and food as soon as possible. Despite working around the clock, the effort was regularly blocked due to aircraft breaking down, flight-critical parts being out of inventory, and pilot fatigue.

Similarly, when building his previous startup, Matija’s team were given 24 hours’ notice to deliver a satellite propulsion system to the mission integrator. FedEx and UPS could not guarantee on-time delivery, forcing Matija to make a 23-hour trip to hand-deliver the flight hardware. He spent the flight back thinking that there has to be a better way.

It turned out that it wasn’t just us. Everyone from startups to the U.S. military, needs faster delivery. We saw an opportunity to create the fastest form of transportation in the world.

🚀 Rockets are the answer

We are building Rook, an autonomous rocket that delivers 250 kg of cargo up to 750 km away. That’s Okinawa to Taiwan in 15 minutes.

Rook launches from a standard 40-ft shipping container, flies through space, re-enters at hypersonic speeds and lands on unprepared surfaces, allowing it to launch and land anywhere on the planet. This opens up completely new commercial markets and military capabilities.

Rook can deliver swarms of autonomous unmanned systems to the battlefield, delivering a fully-autonomous 21st century D-Day effect for the U.S. and allies. The same Rook can deliver time-critical goods for manufacturing, automotive, aerospace, offshore oil and pharma, preventing downtime costs of up to $2M/hour.

🏆 Traction

• Won a $1.25M DoW contract from the US Air Force.
• Completed our first tethered test at the Oklahoma spaceport on a small-scale prototype
• Successfully hot-fired our engine and igniter built using hopOS, our AI-augmented secret sauce.
• Successfully demonstrated drone deployment from our rocket cargo vehicle.

🥷 Team

Matija (CEO): Previously founded porkchop (electric propulsion for small satellites) - launched on SpaceX Transporter-3, built a $400M+ sales pipeline, sold the IP. Led a 20+ person supersonic UAV team at Destinus and scaled Ukrainian loitering-munition production from 10 to 100+ units/month.

Jacob (CTO): US Marine Corps (MV-22 avionics) → SpaceX (Falcon 9/Heavy; built the OG booster refurb program) → Virgin Orbit (LauncherOne) → Masten (led systems integration & test on NASA's CLPS lunar lander) → SpinLaunch. A decade of making rockets fly on schedule.

🙏 Asks

• Intros to DoW customers and end-users. Anyone with warm paths into the Navy, PACOM, or program offices working contested logistics - we want to talk.
• Intros to commercial end-users. Businesses with high downtime costs such as manufacturing, automotive, aerospace, offshore oil, pharma - all are right down our alley.
• Payload partners. We want to deploy your drones, interceptors, electronic warfare jammers and more! Reach out if you want to give your product the ability to teleport to the battlefield!