French launch startup HyPrSpace announced a €21M Series A this week to fund the development of the company’s Baguette One suborbital launch vehicle—targeting an inaugural launch in late 2026.
The round was led by Red River West and DeepTech Plan (a France 2030 initiative managed by French public investment bank Bpifrance), with participation from investment fund Sociétés de Projets Industriels (Bpifrance), OC French Tech Seed (Bpifrance), Expansion, Nouvelle-Aquitaine’s investment fund (NACO), and Audacia. The round brings HyPrSpace’s total funding to over €57M, including a €1.1M seed round in 2022, and €35M investment in 2023 under the France 2030 initiative where HyPrSpace led a consortium that included Telespazio and CT Ingénierie.
But the Baguette is just a starter dish. HyPrSpace shared its long-term plans with Payload, which include raising more capital, building a high-output production facility, and attempting an orbital launch by the end of 2027.
Life is plastic: HyPrSpace’s single-stage, suborbital Baguette, and two-stage, eight-engine Orbital Baguette rockets use both a high-density polyethylene fuel and cryogenic liquid oxygen oxidizer to generate thrust. Both vehicles rely on the same avionics and ground equipment during launch. HyPrSpace Chief Strategy Officer Sylvain Bataillard told Payload that this single-source-launch architecture will help the company build quickly, and drive down production costs.
“My pitch is that I will be able to offer a launch service that is more competitive compared to other launcher companies,” Bataillard said. “The avionics is the same, the ground equipment is the same, the engine is the same…so it’s easier to design, to produce and to use.”
You and what army? There’s also the matter of funding. Bataillard estimated that HyPrSpace would need to raise a ~€50M Series B round shortly after the Baguette One launch to fund the company’s production facility and orbital-launch vision. Luckily, there’s no shortage of funding for European space companies that can offer dual-use capabilities.
HyPrSpace’s production facility is designed to churn out 120 rocket engines per year. The initial idea was to have these engines power eight Orbital Baguette rockets a year. The company, however, may pivot: It has more requests from the commercial sector, as well as France’s defense agencies, to continue building suborbital vehicles for microgravity research and hypersonic testing.
“[The factory] can produce either suborbital or orbital launchers, depending on the market,” Bataillard said. “So, we can really choose, and serve both markets at the same time.”
