WASHINGTON — Stoke Space has raised $260 million to advance development of a fully reusable medium-lift launch vehicle and its Cape Canaveral launch site.
Stoke announced Jan. 15 that it raised a Series C round from a group and new and returning investors. The company declined to disclose the valuation of the round, stating only that it has raised $480 million to date, including a $100 million Series B in October 2023.
The company, based in the Seattle suburb of Kent, Washington, has been working on Nova, a medium-lift vehicle whose two stages are both designed to be reusable. The company recently performed the first firings on a vertical test stand of Zenith, the engine that will power the first stage of the vehicle. That engine, using liquid oxygen and methane propellants, uses a full-flow staged combustion architecture for peak efficiency.
“We deeply appreciate the confidence investors have placed in Stoke and our mission,” Andy Lapsa, chief executive and co-founder of Stoke Space, said in a statement. “This new investment validates our progress and enables us to accelerate the development of technologies that will redefine access to and from space.”
Among the investors participating in the Series C round are Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Glade Brook Capital Partners, Industrious Ventures, Leitmotif, Point72 Ventures, Seven Seven Six, the University of Michigan, Woven Capital and Y Combinator. Lapsa said in an interview that the funding was split roughly “50-50” between new and existing investors.
He said that the funds would go towards completing development of Nova as well as renovations of Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station that will serve as the vehicle’s launch site. The company is making good progress on both, he said, with the launch site to be done by the end of the year, but declined to give an estimate for when the first launch would take place. He added, though, that the funding would support the company through vehicle development and later phases.
Nova is designed to place 3,000 kilograms into low Earth orbit when both stages are reused and up to 7,000 kilograms otherwise. The upper stage, which has an actively cooled metallic heat shield, can bring back payloads from orbit as well.
Lapsa said that Nova can provide customers, particularly of smaller payloads, with the reliability, affordability and cost that they are looking for in a market that today has limited competition. The ability of the upper stage to return payloads opens up additional opportunities, he noted.
“Rapid and reliable reuse of a rocket’s upper stage is the last big challenge to solve before mobility to and from space becomes akin to other forms of transportation,” he said. “It represents a significant inflection in the space economy, and in turn opens the door to an incredible set of business opportunities that make life more vibrant on and off Earth.”
