Stoke Space Raises $100m in Funding Round for Fully Reusable Rocket Development

Key takeaways

• Stoke Space has secured $100m in funding for its new reusable rocket prototype
• The start-up plans to bring its Nova rocket to market “as soon as possible”
• SpaceX, Axiom Space and Rocket Lab have all made breakthroughs lately

We’re that little bit closer to making commercial space travel a reality. Rocketship start-up Stoke Space has raised $100m in its latest funding round to develop a fully reusable rocket. The company has been on an upward trajectory of late, so it wasn’t surprising to see a slew of investors lining up to put in their cash.

It’s the latest funding round in a promising line of largely positive headlines for the fledgling commercial space industry, which is hurtling forward with new developments. Let’s get into the details of Stoke Space’s latest funding round and what its competitors are up to in the wider industry.

What happened with Stoke Space’s funding round?

Start-up Stoke Space has successfully completed its latest funding round and raised $100m to develop its latest Nova rocket, which will be able to deliver 5,000 kilos to low-Earth orbit. The company had already successfully tested its Hopper2 in short flight sequences and has been assigned a launchpad space at Cape Canaveral.

That might be why the company attracted high-profile investors in its latest funding. Industrious Ventures led the investing round, with Steve Angel from the firm joining Stoke’s board of directors. Other investors included the University of Michigan, Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy, YCombinator and Toyota Ventures, among others.

“The priority is to be able to keep the pedal to the metal and continue to develop in order to get to market as soon as possible and really fortify what is still a very fragile commercial space economy,” Stoke Space’s CEO, Andy Lapsa, said.

No valuation figure was available after the funding round, but the company has raised $75 million since its inception in 2019.

What else has happened lately in the sector?

In the summer, Axiom Space announced it had raised $350m in Series C funding to build the next International Space Station. The space start-up has already secured $2.2 billion worth of contracts, including developing new spacesuits for NASA’s Artemis project.

SpaceX, owned by controversial billionaire Elon Musk, has been busy launching satellites — but it might be able to relaunch its Super Heavy rocket soon after the April explosion that shattered the launchpad and grounded the rocket until safety issues had been fixed. While the FAA said the launch could go ahead as soon as this month, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hasn’t even started its investigation yet.

Rocket Lab is another space exploration start-up racing ahead with its plans, including developing hypersonic weapons and opening a new engine facility in the former Virgin Orbit HQ. It’s not been without its hurdles, however, as the company’s rocket launch failure a few weeks ago demonstrated.

The bottom line

Stoke Space’s latest funding round is promising news for the space flight sector and gives the dominant SpaceX a competitor (or, perhaps, a target acquisition). Watching the industry grow is an exciting time for investors looking to get in from the ground level before the companies soar (literally).