Canada Rocket Company (CRC), a Toronto-based launch startup, emerged from stealth last week with the announcement of a $6.2M CDN ($4.5M) seed funding round—and with plans to create sovereign light- and medium-lift launch capabilities for the Great White North.
The round was driven by an “All Canadian” team of investors. It was co-led by the Business Development Bank of Canada and Garage Capital, with additional participation from Ripple Ventures, Panache Ventures, Northside Ventures, and Cold Capital. The company has also received funding from a shortlist of Canadian founders and angel investors associated with companies like Shopify and Kepler Communications.
Oh, Canada! CRC finds itself at a unique moment of opportunity, according to CEO Hugh Kolias. The company was founded late last year in response to Canada’s rapidly increasing investment in the space domain.
- In November, concerns about US tariffs led Canada to make a record contribution to ESA (where it is a cooperating state).
- The same month, the country announced its Launch the North challenge, committing $105M CDN ($75.7M) in public funds to help stand up sovereign launch capabilities.
But the window of opportunity is small. The Launch the North challenge will incentivize companies who are on track to reach LEO by 2028, and other funding may be hard to secure if timelines get stretched.
“Everyone’s trying to build their own solution,” Kolias said. “Eventually we’re going to shift back to globalization, and the world’s going to [ask], ‘Why does everyone have their own launcher?’…You have to move fast enough: where you have enough progress that you’re further ahead than the rest of the world, and you’re also economically competitive.”
The rocket league: CRC’s strategy to meet the aggressive 2028 deadline is to build a scalable architecture around a familiar methalox engine, and field much of the tech with high-TRL subsystems from the Canadian and European ecosystem. CRC aims to develop and test its E-1 engine by the first half of next year, and add a turbo-pump setup for extra power by early 2028, according to Kolias.
- R-1, the company’s light-lift rocket powered by a single E-1 methalox engine, is expected to be able to deliver 700 kg to LEO or 400 kg to SSO. The rocket is a technological demonstrator, but also designed to satisfy the government’s need for a mobile and responsive vehicle that can be launched in under 96 hours.
- R-2, a medium-lift vehicle, will be powered by seven E-1 engines. It is designed to be a reusable vehicle capable of bringing 6,500 kg to LEO.
On the hiring front, the goal is to grow the team to 15 employees by the end of the year, and to staff the company with experienced experts—even if that means luring expats home, according to Kolias. The company is already staffed with SpaceX alum, including:
- David Tenny, CRC’s CTO, spent nearly 10 years as a propulsion engineer at SpaceX.
- Eric Kupp, CRC’s head of avionics, spent over six years at SpaceX, most recently as a lead avionics engineer.
North strong: CRC isn’t the only company looking to stand up launch capabilities in Canada. Other prominent examples include NordSpace, Reaction Dynamics, and Maritime Launch Services (MLS). Both NordSpace and MLS had suborbital launch attempts scheduled in late 2025. NordSpace ultimately delayed its launch in Newfoundland and Labrador to no earlier than this year, while MLS successfully supported Dutch company T-Minus Engineering’s rocket launch from Nova Scotia in November.
