Sierra Space raises extra $290m
September 28, 2023
By Chris Forrester
Sierra Space, based in Colorado, has raised $290 million in Series B funding and which takes its overall funding to $1.7 billion (€1.6bn) – and takes the valuation of the business to $5.3 billion.
The overall cash raised is stated as “the largest ever capital raise by a commercial space company over the combined Series A and B rounds”.
Sierra is busy developing NASA’s ‘Dream Chaser’ spaceplane and some major components of the Orbital Reef space station. Orbital Reef will be a commercially funded orbital space station and is designed to be “mixed-use business park in space in low Earth orbit (LEO) for commerce, research, and tourism by the end of this decade.” Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is involved in the Orbital Reef scheme.
The new cash comes from a portfolio of investors including a Japanese strategic partnership comprising Japan’s largest bank MUFG Bank, Kanematsu, and Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance. The investment also contains cash from General Atlantic, Coatue, Moore Strategic Ventures & Sierra Holding Company with participation from funds and accounts managed by BlackRock Private Equity Partners, AE Industrial Partners and Vice Family Trust.
Sierra, in a press statement, said: “The company is currently transitioning the Dream Chaser spaceplane from years of development to recurring mission operations for NASA cargo resupply flights to the International Space Station (ISS). The company has been in development of the first commercial space station for five years, successfully achieving several hardware design and testing milestones; full-scale testing is due by the end of this year. The program maturity cements Sierra Space’s position as the industry leader in business-ready commercial space station development for use in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and in deep space.”
The Dream Chaser project is capable of transporting crew and cargo to and from LEO and facilitating a 1.5 low-g landing on compatible commercial runways around the world. Dream Chaser is backed by a NASA contract to perform cargo resupply missions to the ISS and in conjunction with the company’s Space Technologies business, contributes to $3.4 billion in active contracts.