Varda has closed a $251M Series D to scale its business of making pharmaceuticals in orbit.
Lux Capital and Natural Capital led the round, which valued the company at $1.6B. Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Caffeinated Capital, General Catalyst, 8090 Industries, Giant Step, and Also Capital also joined.
The new funding brings the total amount raised by Varda to nearly $600M.
Zero-G benefits: Space offers significant benefits for pharmaceutical manufacturing, since the lack of gravity allows medical ingredients to crystallize together in ways that would be impossible on Earth, creating new and more effective medicines.
However, Varda’s capsules are also used by semiconductor manufacturers, who reap similar benefits in low gravity, and national security customers looking to test out tech at hypersonic re-entry speeds.
Waiting to fly: Since 2023, Varda has flown six re-entry missions, with more than a dozen more planned over the next two years.
Two of those are expected to get a taste of space in fairly short order, with the company’s W-8 and W-9 missions set to launch aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-18 as soon as Thursday.
- W-8 will carry sensors to study the capsule’s temperature and other data during re-entry, and includes thermal protection materials on the outside under a US military study.
- W-9 includes a DoD payload to test navigation during hypersonic flight. The outside will test advanced heat shield tiles from Syensqo.
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Artemis Accords signatories will meet at the International Astronautical Congress next week to discuss concrete ways countries can work together on responsible operations in space, according to a NASA release.
The Artemis Accords Principals’ Meeting in Turkey will be led by NASA Deputy Administrator Matt Anderson and Maj. Gen. Roberto Melgar Sheen, director of the Peruvian Space Agency. The meeting will focus on two initiatives:
The more the merrier: The meeting comes as the group of Artemis Accords nations grew to 76 countries, with the additions of Albania, Croatia, Côte d’Ivoire, and San Marino last week.
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