Stoke Space announced Thursday that it raised $100 million, boosting the Kent, Wash.-based company’s quest to develop a new breed of fully reusable rockets and reach orbit by 2025.
“This new round of funding is a huge vote of confidence in our team and the progress we’ve made,” CEO Andy Lapsa said in a news release. “We will now continue moving through our development program by increasing focus on our reusable first stage.”
The funding comes less than a month after the company showcased a successful up-and-down test of its “Hopper” developmental rocket vehicle. The startup said the test highlighted the tech it has developed, including its hydrogen/oxygen engine, heat shield, thrust control, avionics, software, and ground systems.
Stoke Space said it will use the funding to build its first-stage rocket engine and structure, in addition to its orbital version of its reusable second stage. The funding will also go toward upgrades and construction of Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Launch Complex 14. Earlier this year, Stoke Space won the go-ahead to take over the site of John Glenn’s history-making Mercury launch in 1962.
Stoke Space said that it is on target to launch its first orbital test flight in 2025, part of a broader goal of developing a fully reusable launch system that operates with “aircraft-like” frequency to transport payloads to, through, and from space. In addition to hitting its engineering milestones, the startup said it has already taken steps toward commercialization including approaching customers.
The concept behind Stoke Space’s launch system has been compared to the much larger two-stage Starship system that’s being developed by SpaceX for trips beyond Earth orbit.
Along with the funding, Stoke Space unveiled the name of its rocket: Nova. The name was inspired by the astronomical event where new stars form from remnants of older ones. It’s worth mentioning that Stoke Space’s rocket finally has a name because it previously collected a number of nicknames: “The Rocket That Shall Not Be Named” and “Voldemort.”
The Kent, Wash.-based company has about 90 employees, up from 29 people when it raised a $65 million funding round in 2021 led by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures. The workforce, which is almost entirely based in Washington, includes engineers from Blue Origin, SpaceX and Spaceflight Inc., as well as bigger aerospace companies. The company said it continues to increase headcount.
Stoke Space’s relatively rapid ascent has also been sparked by a $9.1 million seed funding round, as well as research grants from NASA, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Air Force.
Stoke Space was founded in 2019 by Lapsa, a veteran of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture; and Tom Feldman, who worked at Blue Origin after interning at SpaceX. The startup was part of the Y Combinator Winter 2021 cohort.
The company has a a 75-acre rocket test facility in Moses Lake, Wash., in addition to a 21,000-square-foot engineering and manufacturing headquarters in Kent, Wash., not far from Blue Origin’s HQ.
Industrious Ventures led the Series B funding round, joined by the University of Michigan, Sparta Group, Long Journey, and additional contributors. Existing investors Breakthrough Energy, Y Combinator, Point72 Ventures, NFX, MaC Ventures, Toyota Ventures, and In-Q-Tel also participated. The round pushes its total raised to-date to $175 million.
