Launch, the Moon and satellites mark the week in space investments
Gettyimages.com / Jeremy Horner
By
Ross Wilkers
Each of these companies are in varying stages of maturity as a business, but all have high-profile backers behind them.
Firefly Aerospace
RPM Ventures, a new investor, led the launch vehicle and spacecraft maker’s Series D round that fetched $175 million in new capital for efforts to increase production and expand market reach.
Firefly now touts a $2 billion valuation and a 700-person workforce. This also represents the first space investment by RPM, whose managing director Marc Weiser was on the NASA Advisory Council’s science committee between 2018 and 2023.
Firefly has launch contracts with the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and NASA, the latter of which includes the Commercial Lunar Payload Service initiative.
The company is also co-developing a medium launch vehicle with Northrop Grumman, while L3Harris Technologies and Lockheed Martin are other key industry partners.
AE Industrial Partners is the private equity owner of Firefly, having purchased the company in the summer of 2023. Jason Kim joined as chief executive in October following four years as CEO of Boeing’s Millennium Space Systems subsidiary.
Lunar Outpost
Justin Cyrus founded this company in 2017 to focus on space robotics, lunar surface mobility and space resources with the goals of both aiding travel to and a regular presence on the Moon.
Lunar Outpost did not disclose what it collected during a Series A funding round co-led by Type One Ventures and Industrious Ventures, but did say the capital will go in part toward its work with NASA on the Lunar Terrain Vehicle Services program.
The company also is contracted with Space Force’s SpaceWERX innovation accelerator arm to further develop a software layer called Mobile Autonomous Robotic Swarms.
MARS is designed to help robotic systems and spacecraft work together as its name indicates, with the idea of having application in both defense and civilian missions.
Industrious Ventures is an investor in companies such as Icon, Stoke Space and Starfish Space. Type One’s lineup of backings includes Argo Space and SpaceX.
Starfish Space
Circling back to this company: it opened for business in 2019 with the idea of supporting life extension, disposal and other satellite servicing missions with its Otter vehicle.
Starfish will move to complete the development of its first three Otters following the raise of $29 million in new capital from investors, including a new one in Booz Allen Hamilton’s venture capital arm.
For Booz Allen Ventures, this represents its third space-focused investment following the backings of Albedo and Quindar earlier this year.
Starfish has now fetched $50 million in capital since its inception and employs 70 people who specialize in areas such as satellite guidance, navigation, control and autonomous robotics.
NASA has contracted Starfish for a debris inspection mission in low-Earth orbit. Starfish also booked a $37.5 million Space Force award in May to build, launch and operate an Otter for a docking mission to aid in maneuvering national security space assets.
Aero X Ventures, TRAC VC and Trousdale Ventures are among the other new investors that participated in the new round. The list of returning investors includes Industrious Ventures, Munich Re Ventures, NFX and Toyota Ventures.