Stoke Space has raised a whopping $510M Series D to fund development of its Nova rocket.
The round, which brings Stoke’s total fundraising to $990M, will enable the launcher to boost production of Nova, complete its work at Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, and prepare for its expected high launch cadence.
Meet Nova: Nova is designed to be a fully reusable rocket that’s expected to lift off on its first orbital test flight next year.
“This funding gives us the runway to complete development, and demonstrate Nova through its first flights,” Andy Lapsa, Stoke cofounder and CEO, said in a statement. “We’ve designed Nova to address a real gap in launch capacity, and the National Security Space Launch award, along with our substantial manifest of contracted commercial launches, affirms that need.”
Who’s who: The US Innovative Technology Fund led the round, which also included participation from Washington Harbour Partners LP and General Innovation Capital Partners. Previous investors, including 776, Breakthrough Energy, Glade Brook Capital Partners, Industrious Ventures, NFX, Sparta Group LLC, Toyota Ventures, and Woven Capital (Toyota’s growth-stage venture investment arm), also joined the round.
Raking it in: The raise proves Stoke’s lack of a launch (so far) isn’t slowing it down. Another accolade it’s locked down before its launch date: The Pentagon announced in March that it had added Stoke to the pool of launchers who could compete for national security space launch contracts valued at $5.6B.
