Portal Space Systems raised a $50M Series A to continue building its maneuverable spacecraft.
Geodesic Capital and Mach33 led the round, which also included participation from Booz Allen Ventures, Ark Invest, AlleyCorp, and FUSE.
Why it matters: Customers today don’t just want to get to space—they want to be able to move around once they’re there. That’s where Portal’s Supernova and Starburst spacecraft come in. These spacecraft aim to provide a critical capability for payloads catching a rideshare launch that need to get to a specific orbit—and for companies looking to be good orbital stewards and deorbit at the end of their mission.
Flashback: It’s been almost exactly a year since Portal raised its $17.5M seed round. In that time, Portal has gotten to space for the first time, launching its “Mini-Nova” payload last month aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-16 flight to test systems that will power Portal’s future spacecraft.
What’s next: The WA-based company is working on achieving several milestones, with the Series A funding, including:
- The first flight of Portal’s Starburst spacecraft, set to fly on Transporter-18 in Q4;
- The first flight of its larger Supernova spacecraft, no earlier than 2027;
- Growing Portal’s 40-person staff to 100 employees by the end of 2026. Target areas include all engineering disciplines, as well as manufacturing, sales, business development, supply chain, procurement, product management, and people operations, Portal CEO Jeff Thornburg told Payload.
- Building a 52,000 sq. ft. factory to scale and meet demand.
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“This round reflects strong conviction in our ability to scale,” CEO and cofounder Rohan Ganapathy said in a statement. “We’ve flight-qualified our core technologies. Now we’re building the production infrastructure to match.”
Just this year, the space industry has announced plans for a million-satellite data center constellation, and monthly flights to the Moon. In addition, everyone wants to grow their constellations, from SDA to EO to satcom. And let’s not forget about the impact of Golden Dome, too.
There’s just one problem—everyone is looking for a ride.
“You look at things like Golden Dome. There were a couple of capability gates there where you had to demonstrate capability by deadlines in order to be eligible to continue to compete,” Brian Rogers, Rocket Lab’s VP of launch, told Payload. “The constraints around launch can pick winners and losers there if you don’t have a way to get to space by a deadline.”
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