
A 23-hour hand delivery taught the aerospace engineer that the fastest machines on Earth still depend on very slow logistics. Now his second startup is trying to put urgent cargo on a suborbital shortcut.
Hop Aero is a Los Angeles aerospace startup (YC S26) building Rook, an autonomous cargo rocket that launches from a standard 40-foot shipping container, flies a suborbital hypersonic arc, and lands 250 kg of cargo up to 750 km away in roughly 15 minutes - onto unprepared ground, with no runway or fixed infrastructure. Founded in 2024 by Matija Milenovic and Jacob Balaj, the company targets contested military logistics and high-downtime commercial supply runs.