APRIL 25
In April 2025, Sebastian reconnected with a former Amazon mentor, Gur Kimchi, over lunch in Seattle’s Capitol Hill. He had been evaluating various startup concepts and wanted to run them by Gur, who is an advisor at an aerospace-focused VC. One of Gur’s many superpowers is “Think Big.” He thinks in decades, not quarters and arcs of civilizations, not products. Gur and Sebastian spent the afternoon diving into space technology, national security, and the future of national conflict, specifically addressing this question: What technology building blocks exist today that we can combine with a big problem to solve to build a massively impactful and necessary company within a decade. Our discussion converged on the biggest, most necessary, and what would have been foolish to ignore concept. That concept became Wardstone.
JULY 25
Sebastian spent a few months working on physics based simulations to evaluate satellite capabilities and constellation designs along with new interceptor concepts. In July 2025, Sebastian responded to a Request for Information from the US Space Force for novel concepts for the Golden Dome. He was invited to the Los Angeles Air Force based for the Golden Dome industry days.
Sebastian grabbed his brother, flew down to LA, and they sat in a room full of big Aerospace Primes and Military leaders. The Space Force laid out their development and funding plans for the Golden Dome. It was an amazing alignment between what Sebastian had been working on and what the nation needed.
SEPT 25
Within the next month, they were accepted into Y-Combinator, Tobias quit his job, Sebastian moved down to SF and they began building out Wardstone.
DEC 25
Wardstone raised their $5MM seed round. Bringing Nova Threshold, Liquid 2, Bow Capital, B5 Capital, and Allegis Capital on board.
APR 26
Wardstone moved to Los Angeles and made their first hire, Mason Gawler.
Hailstorm-Ground made its debut in the Mojave, flying up to 40,000 ft at Mach 2.5. This prototype showed off their first All Up Interceptor Round.
JUL 26
Wardstone officially announces its focus on developing a surface based interceptor ahead of its space based interceptor. After 80+ conversations with DoW stakeholders, the market signal was clear: warfighters need more interceptors at a lower price point for the "missing middle" of aerial threats between Group 4 UAS and Medium Range Ballistic missiles.