Space Fundings Skyrocket 🚀

Well, I thought September’s newsletter was packed, but it seemed like everyday this month, there was another funding announced.

In my effort to bring you news that can impact a company’s real estate needs, we highlighted a bunch! of them below, along with some real estate moves and, as always, content that I’ve enjoyed and hope you do too.

Let’s get to it!

REAL ESTATE HIGHLIGHTS

Proteus Space leases its first Modern Rapid Design and Manufacturing Facility in downtown LA. More Proteus news is below, too. (source: Me!)

CesiumAstro, based in Austin, Texas, opened an office at 101 Continental Blvd, El Segundo, CA. (source: Me!)

Mach Industries moved into approximately 16,000 square feet at 11000 N Mopac Expy, Austin, TX. More Mach news is below, too. (source: Me!)

Ispace, an American lunar exploration company providing Earth-to-Moon transportation and infrastructure capabilities, announced its new U.S. headquarters: 12876 E Adam Aircraft Cir in Englewood, Colorado. Ispace is currently designing and has plans to manufacture its new APEX 1.0 lunar lander for future missions in the 49,420 square foot space. (source: LinkedIn)

Spotter Global, the world's first advanced CSR for drone detection, signed a new 106,067 square-foot five-year lease at 1204 N Miller St, Anaheim, CA. (source: Me!)

NOTABLE FUNDINGS

Sierra Space has raised $290 million in a round led by Japanese investors, providing the company with additional funding to accelerate work on its Dream Chaser vehicle and commercial space stations. The Series B round was led by three Japanese investors: MUFG, Japan’s largest bank; trading company Kanematsu Corporation; and Tokio Marine & Nichido, the country’s largest property and casualty insurer. Existing investors also participated in the round, which values Sierra Space at $5.3 billion. Sierra Space raised $1.4 billion in a Series A round in November 2021. The combined Series A and B rounds is the largest for a commercial space company, Sierra Space stated in its announcement of the new round. (source: SpaceNews)

Reusable rocket maker Stoke Space announced $100 million in new Series B investment to drive continued growth and innovation. This investment more than doubles the company’s total funding, which now sits at $175 million. The funding round was led by Industrious Ventures with participation from the University of Michigan, Sparta Group, Long Journey, and others. Existing investors Breakthrough Energy Ventures, YCombinator, Point72 Ventures, NFX, MaC Ventures, Toyota Ventures, and In-Q-Tel also participated. (source: Stoke Space)

Defense tech company Mach Industries has closed a $79 million Series A led by Bedrock Capital in a deal that catapulted their post-money valuation to $335 million, multiple sources tell TechCrunch. Ethan Thornton, Mach CEO, told TechCrunch that the funds are from investors including “Bedrock, DCVC, Marque, and others to build defense hardware.” (source: TechCrunch)

Saronic, a startup developing autonomous ships for defense, has raised $55 million in a Series A round led by Caffeinated Capital with participation from 8VC, Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Point72 Ventures, Silent Ventures, Overmatch Ventures, Ensemble VC, Cubit Capital, and the U.S. Innovative Technology Fund. Saronic CEO Dino Mavrookas, a former Navy SEAL, launched the company last year with the goal of building autonomous surface ships for the Navy and U.S.-aligned defense customers. (source: PR Newswire)

Frequent space industry collaborator, Los Angeles-based Machina Labs has closed a Series B investment of $32 million to fund the expansion of AI-driven manufacturing. NVentures, NVIDIA’s venture capital arm, and Innovation Endeavors co-led the funding round, according to the announcement. Additional contributions from other new and existing vendors brought the total raised by Machina Labs to $45 million. (source: Robotics24/7)

El Segundo-based Castelion emerges from 11 months of stealth with the company closing a $14.2 million initial funding round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Lavrock Ventures, with participation from First In, BlueYard Capital and Champion Hill Ventures. (source: FinSMEs)

Herndon, Virginia-based HawkEye 360, a commercial operator of remote-sensing satellites, announced it secured an additional $10 million in an extension of its Series D-1 investment round. The funding extension brings the total Series D-1 amount to $68 million and total capital raised to $378 million. (source: SpaceNews)

Denver, Colorado-based startup and stratospheric balloon company Urban Sky has closed a $9.75 million Series A round to scale its Earth imaging operations and expand its data products. (source: Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance)

Auriga Space announced an initial $5 million funding round to deploy electromagnetic technology for space launch. Auriga's venture aims to address the cost and efficiency of space exploration and help lead the space industry's shift to clean energy. (source: AurigaSpace.com)

El Segundo-based AnySignal, a technology company building a radiofrequency (R.F.) connectivity and sensing platform for industrial, aerospace, and defense markets, has closed an oversubscribed $5 million seed round. The round attracted venture capital firms Blueyard Capital, First In, Also Capital, Acequia Capital, Caffeinated Capital, and angel investors. The funding will be used to execute on a backlog of commercial and government contracts. (source: Medium)

Los Angeles-based Proteus Space announced it raised a $4.2 million seed round led by Moonshots Capital. Other investors participating in the round included Lavrock Ventures, The Veteran Fund, Mana Ventures, AIN Ventures, Capital Factory, and Industrious Ventures. Proteus will use the funding to advance its technology to enable rapid development of customized small satellites using AI, which the company argues can rapidly shorten the time to develop those satellites without requiring payloads to confirm to requirements of a more standardized satellite. (source: SpaceNews)

Houston-based intelligent space automation company Cognitive Space announced it has raised $4 million in seed+ funding during the second quarter of 2023, bringing its total fundraise to $10 million. The investment round saw participation from venture capital firms York IE, Draper Associates, and Dolby Family Ventures. (source: Cognitive Space)

PIE CHART!

Given the recent uptick in funding, we thought it might be fun to break out the ol’ Excel pie chart and see where the funded companies are located. Perhaps, not surprisingly, Greater Los Angeles leads the way, representing 35% of the 20 company total.

CONTRACTS

Space Development Agency awards York Space $615 million contract for 62 satellites for DoD’s low Earth orbit constellation. These satellites are for the portion of SDA’s mesh network known as Transport Layer Tranche 2 Alpha. (source: SpaceNews)

True Anomaly lands $17.4M contract from US Space Force for space domain awareness tech. The startup, which was founded less than two years ago, is tasked with developing a suite of space domain awareness (SDA) capabilities for the Space Force. The 48-month-long contract will be delivered via a Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase 3 contract. (source: TechCrunch)

Seven companies to provide NASA with commercial satellite imagery under $476M contract: Umbra, Capella Space, GHGSat, Maxar’s intelligence division, PlanetIQ, Spire, and Airbus Defence and Space subsidiary Airbus DS GEO will provide NASA with commercial satellite imagery, part of an acquisition program that has a maximum potential value of $476 million across all providers. The contract duration is five years, with an option to extend it by six months. (source: TechCrunch)

WHAT I’M CONSUMING (AND ENJOYING)

📈 After seeing all the recent funding activity above, perhaps it’s no surprise that overall space funding is up in 2023. As Payload pointed out, Seraphim Space (aka Generation Space in the US), a leading space investment firm, published its quarterly report on investment activity in the global space economy. According to that report, Q3 2023 saw $1.6B in new investment, up 39% from the quarter before. Over the last 12 months, investment across the industry is up to $5.6B.

🍂 New Father’s Day gift? Not quite yet, but Whisper Aero, maker of radically quieter propulsion systems, is partnering with a leaf blower company to bring quieter landscaping to a neighborhood near you.

📺 Bloomberg Originals’ Hello World host Ashlee Vance profiles LA’s space industry with the help of Impulse Space’s CEO, Tom Mueller. You can check out the 24-minute show on YouTube.

🏫 The future is bright! Two different articles talk about how their universities are helping their students prepare for a career in space: UC Berkley and University of Colorado Boulder.

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Thanks for reading.

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.

Over and out.

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