Ursa Major Technologies, one of Colorado’s biggest aerospace and defense companies, is undergoing a period of major growth.

Following on the heels of solidifying the creation of more than a thousand jobs for the state, Ursa Major now plans to go public in a deal worth billions of dollars. 

The Berthoud-based company specializing in building hypersonics and solid rocket motors announced that it entered into a deal with a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) called Bleichroeder Acquisition Corp. III valued at $2.3 billion after the transaction.

The deal will allow the munitions manufacturer to go public upon closing. The deal is set to close in the first quarter of 2027.

SPACs are public companies with no business function other than to acquire a private company looking to go public. It’s often seen as a less volatile and faster method of going public than traditional initial public offerings.

Going public will allow Ursa Major to speed up its production of solid rocket motors, missile systems and hypersonic engines to get customers more of what they need and faster, the company said.

“The demand for hypersonic systems and solid rocket motors is at an all-time high,” Ursa Major CEO Chris Spagnoletti said on Tuesday during an interview on CNBC. 

The Trump administration is looking to more than double — almost triple — its budget for missiles and munitions next year. The Department of Defense requested $95 billion toward missiles for the 2027 fiscal year, up from nearly $36 billion in 2026.

“The depletion of critical munitions, (and) ongoing global conflicts are rapidly depleting stockpile reserves and traditional defense infrastructure is struggling to replenish legacy missiles,” Spagnoletti said during an investor call on Tuesday morning.

Ursa Major wants to meet the demand and will challenge legacy contractors to make its modern missiles at a faster speed, the company said.

Spagnoletti claimed that some of the legacy contractors aren’t delivering fast enough and their technology is dated compared to Ursa Major.

The Colorado firm said it sees an opportunity, as the government is looking for newer companies to satiate its growing need for weapons amid many global conflicts, such as the war in Iran and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The U.S. is also looking to boost its missile defense through the Golden Dome project and grow the military stockpile for its deterrence strategy.

“The government is deploying significant funding toward new entrants and defense innovation, and Ursa Major is positioning itself to capture that opportunity,” Spagnoletti said.

Ursa Major won a $10 million contract from the U.S. Navy in July to further develop the company’s MK 104 design and has won more than $70 million in contracts for hypersonics to date. 

The company projects its revenues can grow from $100 million in 2026 to $200 million in 2027, according to an investor presentation. The company generated $45 million in revenue in 2025.

Ursa Major was founded in 2015 and is based in the Northern Colorado town of Berthoud. Last week, it debuted a new production facility in Longmont that would grow the company from 300 employees to more than a thousand, with plans to also expand its Berthoud headquarters campus.

The company chose to stay in the state after also considering expanding to Ohio, Mississippi or California — thanks to millions of dollars in state tax incentives.

Ursa Major secured $35 million in job growth tax incentives and $23 million in CHIPS refundable tax credits from the Colorado Economic Development Commission if the company can uphold its goal to create 1,850 new jobs for the state within eight years. 

Keeping an expansion of this size is incredibly important maintain Colorado’s credibility as an aerospace and defense hub, the state economic office said.

“We want to maintain their headquarters and center of gravity in Colorado,” the EDC said in a memo last year. “It is critical that we secure projects like this to ensure companies not only start here but are able to scale and stay here.”

The deal will also allow the company’s site in Galeton to transform from a solid rocket motor test site into a “large-scale production campus,” Tuesday’s announcement said.

Ursa Major plans to scale the production of its “Havoc” missile line to 500 a year by 2030.