Space Dirt Turns 1 🎂

Can’t believe it’s been a year since I had this idea for a newsletter where space intersects with commercial real estate. We’re over 750 subscribers strong now and growing every day. But, like all new endeavors, it’s changed a bit over the year.

I now consider this a more aptly niched “hard tech” newsletter, and I continue to try to add value to the Space Dirt community with new sections of the newsletter, like a job board and my latest project: hard tech subleases (more on this below).

Anyway, I know you’re not here to listen to me blather on, BUT as Space Dirt continues to evolve, if you have any feedback, I’d love to hear it.

And, lastly, thank you for reading.

Let’s get to this issue. Real estate highlights, notable fundings, some new job opportunities, a new website, and my favorite section: What I’ve Been Consuming.

Enjoy!

REAL ESTATE HIGHLIGHTS

Rainmaker leased 6,000 square feet at 109-115 Eucalyptus Dr, El Segundo, CA. (source: Me!)

Universe Energy moved into Radiant’s former space at 131 Sheldon Street, El Segundo, CA. (source: Me!)

A2Z Drone opens its headquarters at 1990 Del Amo Blvd, Torrance, CA. The Torrance headquarters is the company’s base for research and development, product and software design, global sales and marketing, as well as customer training and support. (source: Directions Magazine)

Satellite manufacturer Apex announced it signed a lease for a 46,233 square foot building at 5331 McConnell Ave, Playa Vista, that will be a production facility it calls Factory One. Development of the facility is supported by a $16 million Series A round the company raised in June. The factory, projected to open in the third quarter of 2024, will be able to produce up to 50 satellites a year, said Chief Executive Ian Cinnamon in an interview. That will be a mix of the company’s initial satellite bus, Aries, and its larger Nova bus, based on customer demand. (source: Payload)

Picogrid, a defense technology startup, announced plans to open a factory at FISTA Innovation Park, an emerging defense manufacturing hub adjacent to Fort Sill, a major U.S. Army base in Lawton, Oklahoma. Groundwork starts in 2024, with the factory scheduled to be operational in 2025. The facility will focus on manufacturing of Lander, Picogrid’s flagship sensor platform. The factory coincides with Picogrid recently securing a $950M Pentagon contract.

Solideon opened a 17,000 square foot office at 901 Gilman St, Berkeley, CA. (source: Me!)

Kairos Power has received the go-ahead from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build its Hermes demonstration reactor at the Heritage Industrial Park in Oak Ridge, TN, making it the first non–light water reactor approved for construction in the United States in more than 50 years. Kairos’ headquarters is in Alameda, CA. (source: Nuclear Newswire)

NOTABLE FUNDINGS

El Segundo-based Cambium, an advanced materials innovator for defense and other high-performance fields, announced a $19 million Series A funding round. 8VC led the round, with participation from Veteran Ventures, GSBackers, Marlinspike, MVP Ventures, Gaingels, Kern Venture Fund, Jackson Moses (Founder, Silent Ventures), Vertical Capital, and select angel investors. DLA Piper provided legal counsel to Cambium on the transaction. This Series A round enables Cambium to build out staffing and R&D, rapid discovery-to-field demonstrations, and pilot-scale manufacturing. (source: Cambium)

Los Angeles-based startup OurSky announced that it closed $9.5 million in seed funding led by Upfront Ventures alongside Oceans Ventures, Venrex Investment Management, Marlinspike Partners and Embedded Ventures, to further accelerate deployment of scopes and the developer platform. (source: TechCrunch)

Berthoud, Coloarda-based Rocket propulsion company Ursa Major, announced that it closed $138 million in its Series D and D-1 funding rounds. Investors include Explorer 1 Fund and Eclipse, RTX Ventures, funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, Exor Ventures, Mack & Co., XN, SV Pacific Ventures, and other institutional shareholders. With this investment, Ursa Major will continue to develop Lynx, the company’s new solid rocket motor (SRM) program, while scaling production capacity and advancing multiple propulsion programs. While the initial Series D round was completed earlier in the year, Ursa Major extended fundraising to include a Series D-1 round due to strong interest in accelerating the development of several future programs. (source: Ursa Major)

Cedar Park, Texas-based Firefly Aerospace, an end-to-end space transportation company, announced the closing of another tranche of financing, valuing the company at $1.5 billion pre-money. The round is being led by existing investors including AE Industrial Partners, LP, as well as new investors including Mitsui & Co., Ltd. Firefly has raised approximately $300 million in funding since February 2023. (source: PR Newswire) 

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based Gecko Robotics, which creates robots to assess the safety and condition of critical infrastructure, has raised an additional $100 million in a Series C extension, bringing the total Series C raise to $173 Million. The new cash infusion was led by some big names — the US Innovative Technology Fund and Founders Fund, both of which will be taking board seats. The addition of Founders Fund and USIT, both well-known investors in the defense technology space, comes on the heels of last week’s announcement that Gecko will help the U.S. Navy increase the speed of the manufacturing process for the $132 Billion Columbia-class Sub program. The expanded partnership comes as the city of Pittsburgh tries to flex its advanced manufacturing prowess and capitalize on federal infrastructure investments. Gecko is part of a network of industry ambassadors organized by the Pittsburgh Technology Council that have pitched the region’s defense manufacturing potential in Washington. (source: Crunchbase News)

Bellevue, Washington-based data networking startup Armada came out of stealth on December 11 after raising more than $55 million to develop computing tools promising to empower remote devices connected to Starlink, SpaceX’s low Earth orbit broadband constellation. Founders Fund, an early SpaceX investor, led Armada’s funding round alongside venture capital firms Lux Capital, Shield Capital, and 8090 Industries. Early-stage investors Felicis, Contrary, Valor Equity Partners, Marlinspike, 137 Ventures, Koch Real Estate Investments, and 8VC also participated in Armada’s fundraising, along with undisclosed strategic investors. Armada says its portable Galleon data centers would give oil rigs, battlefields, and other off-the-grid sites real-time data processing capabilities usually confined to areas with terrestrial connectivity, including generative artificial intelligence platforms such as ChatGPT. 

Denver-based True Anomaly, the technology company developing advanced hardware and software systems to ensure the sustainable security of space, announced it has closed a $100 million Series B equity raise. The round was led by Riot Ventures with participation from Eclipse, ACME Capital, Menlo Ventures, Narya, 645 Ventures, Rocketship.vc, Champion Hill Ventures, and FiveNine Ventures. This financing enables continued investment in people, products, and services to further advance True Anomaly's mission. (source: PR Newswire)

Atomic Industries has closed a $17 million seed round led by Narya, and co-led by 8090 Industries and Acequia Capital New Industrials, with additional participation from Porsche Ventures, Yamaha Motor Ventures, Toyota Ventures and Impatient Ventures, and supported by Phaedrus, SaxeCap, Zack Nathan, Tyler Knight and the CWRU Alumni Fund. Narya partner Falon Donohue is joining Atomic’s board. With the new funding, Atomic has established a state-of-the-art testbed facility in Detroit to build out AI manufacturing capabilities. (source: TechCrunch)

AGREEMENTS

Amazon has purchased three Falcon 9 launches from SpaceX to support the deployment of its Project Kuiper mega-constellation. The new deal comes scarcely two months after it was revealed that Amazon was facing a lawsuit over its decision not to consider SpaceX — the most reliable rocket company on the planet — in its first round of launch contracts. (source: TechCrunch)

JOB BOARD

Putting this one out to the community in case you know someone looking.

Redondo Beach, California-based Antares has three opportunities on its website: Control Systems Engineer, Nuclear Engineer, and Senior Mechanical Design Engineer.

As always, I’m happy to make an intro or referral, but I also understand the nature of a job search can be confidential, so no big deal either way. Just here to help!

HARD TECH SUBLEASES

Introducing Hard Tech Subleases, Space Dirt’s sister website for anyone looking to sublease - you guessed it! - hard tech space OR looking for some help in subleasing their current space.

We currently have one listing up (601-607 E El Segundo Blvd, El Segundo, CA) with more in the works.

If you’re interested, I’d suggest you sign up to be alerted when new properties are listed.

WHAT I’M CONSUMING (AND ENJOYING!)

🛰 Quilty Space’s forecasted satellite growth by year. I found this in Approach Venture’s December newsletter. Note this doesn’t include  E-Space, Chinese, and Russian satellites.

🪂A quick read on why SpaceX would buy a struggling parachute manufacturer. Hint: “Space is hard, but space parachutes are much harder,” Abhi Tripathi, director of mission operations at UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory, said.

💨 A nice TechCrunch profile on Brad Hartwig and what he’s got going on over there at Arbor.

🇺🇸 In a world where geopolitical dynamics are rapidly shifting, Grayline Group’s Joseph Kopser on why Reimagining American Manufacturing is so important.

📹 In sports, this would be a hype video. Armada calls it their “anthem film.” I'm Not sure what to call it here, but I’m all in on this video for Armada that hints at the immense potential of edge computing and the profound impact it can have on our world. You can also learn more about Armada in this Forbes article.

📍 If you're in Chicago and you’re working in hard tech, check out mHUB Startup Community.

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If you’d like your office and/or manufacturing space or business profiled, let me know. It’s always fun to explore and share the many different components of the space business.

As always, I’m here to help with your real estate needs.

Happy holidays!

Erik Stiebel
Founder and Vice President
CA DRE License #02080746
(c) +1 424.241.4795
[email protected]