German rocket startup Isar Aerospace secures $174 million in financing
The German rocket startup Isar Aerospace announced today that it has obtained $174 million in new financing from a Miami-based investment firm.
This news report adds these details:
On 25 July 2025, Isar Aerospace announced that it had signed a €150 million convertible-bond agreement with Eldridge Industries. The instrument provides the company with funding in the short term, and the debt can later be converted into equity in the form of shares, typically at a pre-agreed valuation during a future financing round or an IPO.
That Isar needed to go to an American investment firm suggests there was a lack of interest in Europe to invest in this European rocket startup. The nature of the deal also suggests the possibility that some ownership rights will shift to Eldridge over time.
In March Isar first launch attempt of its Spectrum rocket from Norway’s Andoya spaceport failed 30 seconds after lift-off. It is building two more rockets, and will use this new capital to expand its production and launch facilities.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The German rocket startup Isar Aerospace announced today that it has obtained $174 million in new financing from a Miami-based investment firm.
This news report adds these details:
On 25 July 2025, Isar Aerospace announced that it had signed a €150 million convertible-bond agreement with Eldridge Industries. The instrument provides the company with funding in the short term, and the debt can later be converted into equity in the form of shares, typically at a pre-agreed valuation during a future financing round or an IPO.
That Isar needed to go to an American investment firm suggests there was a lack of interest in Europe to invest in this European rocket startup. The nature of the deal also suggests the possibility that some ownership rights will shift to Eldridge over time.
In March Isar first launch attempt of its Spectrum rocket from Norway’s Andoya spaceport failed 30 seconds after lift-off. It is building two more rockets, and will use this new capital to expand its production and launch facilities.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Read the headline and thought, “Wow! That’s a pretty big deal for Europe!”
Then read the story, hit “Miami-based,” and it suddenly didn’t seem so exceptional. This a pretty typical deal size from American VC or equity finance sources for follow-on capital to an established start-up that has shown some moves. The recent Stoke Space deal is another example. The only unusual thing here is that the start-up in question is European rather than American.
One would think Europe would find it embarrassing that American financiers think more of European start-ups than European financiers do, but Europe seems to be entirely beyond embarrassment in so many ways these days that this likely barely registers.
Should part or all of this loan eventually convert to equity, one wonders whether partial American ownership will prove a minus-factor anent future competition for launch of European government payloads. One suspects the answer to this question will be ‘yes.’
The fact that the entity extending the loan is Miami-based – and not New York or Silicon Valley-based – also seems evidence of the growing competition Miami is providing to more established American financial centers.
That is good news.
There was an old movie called PRIME CUT that started Lee Marvin as a “fixer,” long before Ray Donovan.
The heavy in this movie was played by the late Gene Hackman, who–like most villains–had the best lines.
When asked why he moved his criminal empire to farm country-he replied about how New York was an “old dow” that had seen its best days.
There was more, but my memory is failing.
Old sow
@ Dick,
You must remember that Europe is not a single country, but a very loosely bound economic area… Most countries use the Euro as currency, ( not Sweden, Denmark, Norway )… There are trade deals in place, a certain amount of free movement, and cooperation on certain projects, like ESA, But it is impossible to embarrass Europe… countries under the umbrella certainly, but not the whole caboodle.
Just to pull a recent example…. Most of Europe has agreed to increase defence spending to 5% of GDP. ( Which given the current political environment seems pertinent) Except Spain… There is nothing we over here can do… And if they’re booted out of NATO, it’s there own fault.
Spain looks to spend less on defense and maybe more on space later.
Lee S,
None of that is news to me – though I would take exception to characterizing EU control over individual European countries as “loose.” It’s the fact that such control is now anything but loose that has engendered both Brexit and comparable movements in a growing number of the Continental nations.
Whether or not “Europe” can be embarrassed is an interesting question. Certainly multinational organizations that include much of Europe can be embarrassed. ESA is one such and it was seriously embarrassed by its erstwhile “launcher crisis” and still seems to be to some degree as said crisis is still effectively hanging on.
The EU, being far more ideological in its underpinnings, is correspondingly far more resistant to acknowledging any basis for embarrassment. That tends to be the case with leftist institutions generally. Public acknowledgment of embarrassment by such entities, at least, is vanishingly rare. The Democratic Party here in the US is another such example so it’s hardly a uniquely European affliction.
But Germany still thinks of itself as the rich nation of Europe – however much that conceit may be growing threadbare – and is home to the largest financial institutions on the Continent. And it was a German rocket company that secured its significant funding tranche from an American source. So one would expect that Germany, at least might feel a bit of embarrassment over this state of affairs. I would readily understand, however, if Germany finds it has so many other things to be embarrassed about these days that it simply cannot spare any attention for this particular matter.
Anent defense spending, most of Europe quit even pretending to meet its NATO “obligations” once Bill Clinton pretty much gave them permission to do so after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The ask was only 2% in those days. Now, it is 5%. I don’t anticipate that most of Europe will do much better at meeting that target than it did the previous one.
Europe, overall, is in a long-term secular decline and can be fairly said, I think, to already have entered a sort of terminal decadence state of being. Places that are in a decadence phase can be very enjoyable places to be – at least until things go completely to pieces. Europe would probably be one of those places these days were it not for its disastrous acceptance of millions of unassimilated – and unassimilable – tribal barbarian “refugees” from various endemically squalid and tyrannical Grasshutistans. The fate of Rome, one would think, should provide some sense of pause by contemporary Europeans. But, then, the barbarian hordes that eventually put paid to Rome mostly came from what are now the European nations most severely impacted by this freshest barbarian invasion. So it goes.
@ Dick,
Sorry, but you don’t really have a grip on how Europe works. I know you always go back to the “socialist” trope, however the right is very much on the rise over here, ( much to my dismay… But let’s not go there!) All the member states of the EU have political independence and fiscal independence. You have a point regarding unrestricted immigration… Sweden has suffered as much as any other country in Europe, although things are improving as the immigrants slowly integrate.
You are wrong to say Europe is anything other than a loosely bound economic trading area, with a free movement agreement with other member states. There is absolutely nothing any other country/organization can impose on Sweden, or any other EU country ( with the exception of NATO if they want to stay in )… Unlike the US we are not the united states of Europe. The EU is an economic trading area, with cooperation on some projects, Ie ESA.. ( with varying degrees of success).
The most amusing point highlighted on this subject is that doesn’t it prove what is constantly preached here? The free market… ( Which I don’t disagree with! ) , Isar Aerospace most certainly shopped around, and found the best deal in the US. I don’t understand why in you’re eyes this should be an embarrassment to the whole of Europe, it should be a point of pride for the US. Unless everything goes horribly wrong. It is not inconceivable that European potential investors, from whatever country did more due diligence and decided against investing… Time will tell.
One final point, which I have made a million times here… Please stop comparing the European (fairly) socialist system to your loony left. Healthcare for all.. social help for the poorest, social housing, childcare and good education for our children without breaking the bank, clean streets, green open places even in.the city’s, union representation in the.work place to ensure good working conditions for the working folks… The list goes on. I’m sure you have many reasons why I am wrong.. but I am here.to tell you,.I live in this system,.yes I pay high taxes, I was a net taker while my children were still kids, now I am a net giver which is fine. That is the way our “mild” socialist system works, and I am very happy to live with it.
The US has the highest poverty rate of any 1st world country. The best judge of the morals of a country is how they treat the poorest in their society…. I’m afraid socialist Sweden beats the US hands down.
Just another aside… I recently holidayed in Egypt.. ( amazing by the way.. recommend! ) and on the way to a restaurant I realized I had forgotten my insulin at the hotel, the taxi driver pulled over at a pharmacy and I paid roughly 17 bucks US for an insulin pen… Egypt has.no subsided health care… So why do you guys pay more than $100 for the same life saving product?
I’m by no means saying any other system is perfect, but trying to point out that you should realize there are many holes in your system also, and perhaps you should way up the pluses and minuses before condemning the system I am happy to live under.
( And you have got me talking politics again!)
“however the right is very much on the rise over here”
And why do you suppose that is?
WHAT IS THE FUNCTION OF RANKED CHOICE VOTING?
https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/what-is-the-function-of-ranked-choice-voting
@ Cotour… Thanks for the input… But please, as I have mentioned many times before… Linking to your own website proves nothing more than your love of your own propaganda
Ok, now, @Dick, ( and… Sigh.. I guess Cotour ) + anyone else that feels like giving me crap over my political views.
I am not a stupid child. I am a fairly intelligent guy in my mid 50’s. I live in a socialist ( by your standards) country. I have lived in, and observed countries with a much further right government, and things haven’t turned out so well. I understand the pros and cons of the more socialist government my country has.. contrary to popular belief here I am not stupid. I do “get it” when my stupidness is pointed out.
You guys literally have gameshow host multi millionaire leading your country… A guy that was best friends with Elon for a couple of months, until they split up… Which is kinda a pattern with Donald.. Hire and fire for personal reasons, nothing to do with competence.
You guys over the pond just don’t get it… If I may talk down to you all for a second or 2..
Your health care system is an absolute tragedy.. no argument to be had there. Your social care system is almost non existent.. you have more “citizens” living in poverty than any other first world country.
@ Cotour … Any of the points I have raised that you would like to answer with something other than a link to your own website?
Right… Here are a couple of unpleasant truths… Your love of right wing politics could very well end up carving your country in 2. It is blatant to the rest of the world. If you have more than 2 brain cells you know why
Second. I told you even before Trump’s first term that the rest of the world looked at the US with some ridicule, now ( and due to Biden and Trump ) the rest of the world has open scorn for northern America. I’m sure I will get crap for this post, but don’t shoot the messenger. I am just giving you a couple of home truths, and perhaps a couple of points to contemplate before you pontificate on how wrong I am.
Lee S,
You wrote: “There is absolutely nothing any other country/organization can impose on Sweden, or any other EU country”
Was that a policy change after the UK bailed out? They left because they didn’t like the impositions of the EU.
“Please stop comparing the European (fairly) socialist system to your loony left. Healthcare for all.. social help for the poorest, social housing, childcare and good education for our children without breaking the bank, clean streets, green open places even in.the city’s, union representation in the.work place to ensure good working conditions for the working folks… The list goes on. ”
And we pay high taxes, too. You listed what our “loony left” has imposed upon us, so what did your (sensible?) left impose upon you all?
“The US has the highest poverty rate of any 1st world country.”
The high poverty rate is because we have taken in a whole lot of parasites who leech off our largess, driving up our taxes (we pay similar rates as you), our medical costs, our school costs, our housing costs, and they add to the crimes, driving up our prison costs. For those we took in that get jobs, they reduce our wages and take our children’s entry-level jobs; no wonder so many of our twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings are living at home, they cannot get work experience to get the jobs that pay well enough to live on their own.
“Just another aside… I recently holidayed in Egypt..”
It is kind of funny. You holiday in a whole lot of foreign countries, but we supposedly-rich Americans do not get around the globe for holiday as much as you do. It seems that our subsidization of your lifestyle leaves you with a lot of money to spend on extravagant holidays while we here in America spend our holidays closer to home.*
“So why do you guys pay more than $100 for the same life saving product?”
I have explained this several times before: Our laws forbid selling pharmaceuticals for more than cost, so we Americans have to pay the cost of development, driving up the price we pay while you pay only the cost of manufacturing and shipping. It is why so many Americans who live near Canada and Mexico go to these two countries to buy their pharmaceuticals. This should indicate to you the high cost of development of pharmaceuticals. We subsidize the world and receive no thanks or gratitude. It is part of the socialization of America. To paraphrase a socialist slogan: ‘From us according to our hard work, to every other country according to their desires.’
“but trying to point out that you should realize there are many holes in your system also”
We know that our system is less than perfect. Governments and governance are human made, so none will ever be perfect.
We have been looking at how our system of governance is trying hard to emulate yours, and we have seen how far we fall every time a new socialist idea is introduced. All the complaints you have brought up about our system are a result of marxist and socialist ideologies introduced into our country.
In our country, it is the areas that most emulate your system (greater central control — deviating from freedom and free markets) that have the problems you say are our flaws. We have been seeing this happen since 1960, when the socialist Democrats took over Detroit from the Republicans and declared it their own Model City, only to turn it into the typical socialist dystopia, with only half its 1960 population remaining, desperate unemployment, and abandoned properties. What a dump most of the city is. Other cities are rapidly decaying into the same state of socialist decrepitude. San Francisco was once a beautiful city, the envy of much of the world; now you have to buy maps to see where to avoid so you don’t step in human feces.
We have taken a half-century look at our own systems of governance in order to make it more perfect (as the Constitution’s Preamble directs), and the knowledge we gained from our own experiences and the experiences of governments around the world and through history is exactly why we can criticize your system of governance and social care. We see that yours fails everywhere it is tried, even in the U.S., and the conservative free market capitalist system thrives everywhere it is tried. Even when China and India moved slightly toward free market capitalism, a billion people were liberated from poverty in those two countries combined. Socialism doesn’t work no matter who works it and no matter where it is worked. It goes against human nature. Free market capitalism thrives everywhere it is tried and no matter who tries it — even just a little, such as the communist Chinese and the socialist Indians.
You, on the other hand, have only visited areas of the U.S. that have embraced marxism, so your view of the U.S. system is skewed against the conservative viewpoint. It is why you are so bad at accurately describing the U.S.’s freedoms and free market capitalist system, where it is available, and why you do not see that the problems in the U.S. stem from the use of marxist ideologies.
Your American friends are in an area where the population prefers poverty over the advantages of the freedom to move to a prosperous place. America’s half-century-old marxist welfare system allows for that to happen. Your friends are living in the “Detroit” of the Appalachian Mountains, but they won’t move to a better place, like the Detroiters did.
On the other hand, the U.S. government has been taking away freedoms and is doing much to control the once-free markets, much like your system of governance. One of the latest was the takeover of the medical system that you say is so terrible. It was much better, back when it was a free market system, but now it is government controlled and heavily regulated, and decisions are no longer as much between the patient and his doctor or the investor and his company’s officers. Frankly, your system sucks. It is OK for you, because you are benefitting from other people’s money — from our money.
Oh, how much better your place would be if your country (both of them), too, were like the U.S., with similar productivity and prosperity and could, too, could support others, and how much better our place would be if we could keep more of what we make and earn. It is freeloaders like you socialists that spoil the world. Socialism is why we cannot have nice things.
_____________
* We even have the recent term “staycation” to describe a vacation spent at home, because we spend so much in taxes to subsidize various countries around the world the we don’t have enough left over to leave the house. No wonder you guys have enough money to pamper your poor.
” Your love of right wing politics could very well end up carving your country in 2″
Its not exactly love, it’s just common sense. Are you familiar with the concept?
More likely the Republicans under the direction and leadership of Trump, Vance and Rubio there will be a 24 year period of American politics where all of this Socialist nonsense and navel gazing in America and the world will be dominated and crushed by America in spite of the ridicule that the now clearly inferior EU / socialists and the rest of the world feel or think about America.
No one, especially me cares about what you or anyone else thinks about America. I have no concern about who likes or dislikes me or the political direction America is going today and into the future. You are not paying attention.
What you are in fact witness to is the total destruction and schizophrenic split of one political party, the Democrat party, in America exactly because they have gone too far into the Leftist / Socialist / authoritarian / Subjective you will do as you are directed mentality.
And you are more likely to be consumed by it.
You are without understanding it your own worst enemy.
But then we already understand that.
Lee S,
You wrote: “I live in a socialist ( by your standards) country. I have lived in, and observed countries with a much further right government, and things haven’t turned out so well.”
California changed from free market capitalism to a central-control marxist state. It once attracted businesses and workers, but now businesses and workers are fleeing. As SpaceX learned, California’s governmental bodies now reward their friends and punish their enemies. I have lived under both types of governance, and I like the former, not the latter. But then, I haven’t been the recipient of free stuff, just been the guy who pays for other peoples’ free stuff.
We Americans have fifty states, which have been experimenting with various forms of governance since the Plymouth and Jamestown colonies in the early years of the 1600s. For more than four hundred years, we Americans have been examining what works and what does not. This is why we are able to explain our conclusions. Not everyone wants to hear the results of our experiments, as they tend to be emotionally attached to their own systems of governance. You, Lee, have yet to present us with much that is new, except that you are happy being a receiver of American largess.
“You guys literally have gameshow host multi millionaire leading your country…”
Which should show you how easy it is to prosper in a free market capitalist system. Virtually anyone can run one successfully. Even the communist Chinese and socialist Indians.
“Your social care system is almost non existent..”
Which just goes to show how little you know about America and its very pricy social care system. Trillions and trillions of dollars go to help the poor, and the poor understand that in order to continue getting the free stuff and free money, they must remain poor. Social care systems do not give incentive to get off the system. If our system were so bad as you think, the poor would have incentive to get a job.
Indeed, your view is that poor village you visited a few years back, where you said the poor were unwilling to move to where the jobs are.
Lee S: ”I’m afraid socialist Sweden beats the US hands down.”
LOL! Ahhh, no.
2023 Per capita GDP (PPP) per the World Bank
USA $82,250
Sweden $70,210
EU $60,350
UK $58,910
If the EU were a state it would rank 46-1/2 among the 50 US states, between South Carolina and Alabama. If the UK were a state it would rank 47-1/2 among the 50 US states, between Alabama and Arkansas. If Sweden were a state it would rank 34-1/2 among the 50 US states, between Florida and Arizona.
You’re right that there is a pretty big disparity between the wealth of Europeans and the wealth of Americans. The wealth of Americans is far higher.
Like it or not, LeeS, this is what and who you are closely associated with, even though it is happening in NYC and America. Why is that? Because AMERICA STRIDES THE WORLD and effects all and every country on the planet. And that is not by mistake.
This is who you are closely associated with: https://dailycaller.com/2025/06/28/jamaal-bowman-socalism-zohran-mamdani-new-york-city-democrat-party/
An extra bonus just for you: https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/america-strides-the-world-2
Remember to read your SIGMA3!
Might do you some good, subscribe, you should not miss one.
I write it with people like you in mind. There is always hope that you will wake up.
Like it or not, LeeS, this is what and who you are closely associated with, even though it is happening in NYC and America. Why is that? Because AMERICA STRIDES THE WORLD and effects all and every country on the planet. And that is not by mistake nor is it an overstatement.
This is who you are closely associated with: https://dailycaller.com/2025/06/28/jamaal-bowman-socalism-zohran-mamdani-new-york-city-democrat-party/
An extra bonus just for you: https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/america-strides-the-world-2
Remember to read your SIGMA3!
Might do you some good, subscribe, you should not miss one.
I write it with people like you in mind.
There is always hope that you will wake up.
Lee S,
In another thread, Dick Eagleson said that leftists misunderstand nearly everything about economics, and “As the late David Horowitz noted, the left has written millions of words about wealth redistribution, but not a single word about wealth creation.”
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/june-262025-quick-space-links/#comment-1603682
I can explain it to you, and I have several times, but I cannot understand it for you, which you haven’t just as many times.
I think that the problem is that marxists, socialists, and communists do not understand economics, which are best observed in free markets. Marxists tend to think that prices can be set by a bureaucracy and people will buy at that price, but as has been discovered in every centrally controlled economy (the essence of marxism), this only leads to shortages. It even happens whenever the government has controlled prices here in the U.S., from petrol prices in the 1970s gas crisis, to housing in rent-controlled cities, to pharmaceuticals in the U.S. vs. the rest of the world. You asked why the price disparity for insulin, and I have explained it to you, with no comprehension on your part — you merely ask the question again months later.
It is not your fault for not grasping economics, as it has not been much in your socialist world. You may think that your economy is free market, but your government has a huge influence on your economy through taxes, regulations, and other means of governmental authority. Even in America, we have had our free markets impaired by excessive government interference, most especially since the Wickard v. Filburn Supreme Court case in 1942, which ruled that a farmer can be regulated to the extent that he may not grow additional food to feed his own animals.
Wickard v. Filburn may seem ludicrous, but the Supremes were able to rationalize regulating an individual farmer’s crop as affecting in a small way the commerce among the several states. Apparently, the farmer would not have otherwise bought feed from his neighbor but would have sent away to another state for feed for his animals. Does this seem likely? Would you pay shipping costs for a commodity that you could pick up in your own cart from your neighbor? Neither would I, but the Supreme Court Justices apparently are wealthy enough that they thought they would, and they projected their own stupidity onto every farmer in the U.S. This is yet another example of central control being more harm than good.