Redwire ($RDW) acquired Palo Alto satellite-builder Hera Systems for an undisclosed price, the company announced yesterday after markets closed.
This is the tenth acquisition for the conglomerate built by private equity fund AE Industrial Partners, which has rolled up spacecraft component manufacturers into an aspiring space infrastructure giant that went public in 2021.
Hera advertises itself as a developer of high-end satellite buses for national security customers. Its most notable business is as subcontractor to Orion Space Solutions on the US Space Force’s Tetra-5 program, which is building three autonomous spacecraft to demonstrate rendezvous, proximity, and docking operations in GEO orbits.
$$$: Redwire says that Hera is profitable and recorded $15M in revenue in 2023; after the transaction closes at the end of the third quarter, Redwire expects to add $10M to its 2024 revenue guidance. The deal was funded by some portion of Redwire’s balance sheet liquidity, which the company reported at $31M at the end of the second quarter.
The company’s stock was up 2.25% in after-hours trading.
On trend: The deal is intended to help Redwire expand its national security business, CEO Peter Cannito said, which already includes a VLEO spacecraft demo for DARPA and component work for an SDA proliferated satellite constellation.
The deal positions Redwire to win more business as a prime contractor building bespoke satellites for the DoD, potentially competing with True Anomaly to carve out the nascent market for space domain awareness, or with Astranis in exploiting the possibilities of micro-GEO satellites for secure communications.
