Long Beach-based SpinLaunch announced Tuesday that it has acquired another $71 million in financing to fund the ongoing development and commercialization of its unique small satellite launch system.
The money was secured through a Series B funding round led by ATW Partners. Other investors include Kleiner Perkins, GV, ATMA Capital, ONA Capital, Lauder Partners, McKinley Capital and Tyche Partners. The round also included individuals John Doerr, Brook Byers, Asher Delug, Chuck Brady, Andrew Farkas and Greg McAdoo.
The financing, which includes equity and debt, brings SpinLaunch’s total funding to $150 million, the company stated.
“In the last two years, even during difficult COVID times, SpinLaunch has shown remarkable and continued success,” said Wen Hsieh, General Partner of Kleiner Perkins. “We share in the company’s goal to realize the full-potential of the space economy by developing a revolutionary space launch system that is both very low-cost and environmentally-sustainable.”
SpinLaunch, which relocated from Sunnyvale to Long Beach in January 2019, is developing the world’s first kinetic launch system to put small satellites into orbit. Rather than using rocket engines and massive amounts of fuel, the innovative launch system would literally hurl payloads into space using a large electrical mass accelerator to provide initial thrust.
After seven years of development, the firm completed a successful test of a scaled down version of its Orbital Accelerator concept, including launch vehicle recovery, in October of last year.
Following its success, the company inked a deal with NASA to further test the system’s feasibility and gather data for future commercial launch opportunities. Under the agreement, SpinLaunch will develop and fly a NASA payload. The mission will then be analyzed by the company and agency for potential flaws and areas that can be improved.
The goal of SpinLaunch is to begin running missions for customers in 2025, offering a lower cost and higher cadence than traditional launch service providers.
“SpinLaunch’s mission is to bring the world low-cost, sustainable access to space,” CEO Jonathan Yaney said in a statement, noting that the company has now completed nine successful flight tests and is preparing to construct its full-sized system. “In addition, the team continues to build out a low cost, mass manufactured, satellite product line that will ensure our customers have a uniquely differentiated platform for building space capabilities.”
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