Ursa Main has quietly closed $100 million in new funding, based on paperwork seen by TechCrunch and a number of sources.
Funders to the Sequence D embrace BlackRock and House Capital. The funding was reportedly closed final October.
The brand new capital got here lower than a 12 months after the corporate closed an $85 million Sequence C. All advised, the corporate has now raised round $234 million. The corporate sought the funding at a $400 million pre-money valuation.
An Ursa Main spokesperson declined to remark “on rumors or hypothesis.”
Ursa, led by CEO Joe Laurienti, is constructing a 5,000-pound liquid oxygen and kerosene engine known as Hadley and a a lot bigger, 10x extra highly effective Ripley engine with a 50,000-pound thrust. The corporate eschews the vertical integration paradigm that has traditionally dominated the aerospace business. As a substitute, it focuses solely on the engine, one of many trickiest components of a rocket to develop.
“We actually just like the notion that we’re a know-how improvement firm, and the businesses which are flying rockets right this moment shouldn’t be flying the identical engine that they architected for his or her rocket 10 years in the past,” Laurienti advised TechCrunch in an interview final 12 months. “That’s the paradigm we see in vertical integration.”
Ursa’s public buyer pool contains small launch firms Astra, Phantom House and Stratolaunch. The corporate has additionally scored an engine supply contract with the U.S. Air Pressure.