Stoke Space said to be raising as much as $500 million in private investment capital
Stoke’s Nova rocket, designed to be
completely reusable.
UPDATE: Stoke Space confirms the story, announcing today that it has raised $510 million in new capital.
According to anonymous sources, the rocket startup Stoke Space is in the process of raising as much as $500 million in private investment capital, with new $2 billion valuation for the company.
Stoke Space, one of the Seattle area’s up-and-coming space startups, is said to be raising hundreds of millions of dollars in a funding round that it hasn’t yet publicly acknowledged. A report about the round, based on two unidentified sources, was published today by The Information.
The Information quoted its sources as saying that the funding round could total as much as $500 million, and would value Stoke at nearly $2 billion. That figure would be roughly twice as much as the $944 million valuation that was cited by Pitchbook as of January. The round’s lead investor is said to be Thomas Tull’s United States Innovative Technology Fund.
Earlier this year Stoke raised $260 million, bringing its available capital to almost a half billion. If this story is confirmed, it means the company will have almost a billion in available cash on hand.
The design of Stoke’s Nova rocket is unique in that both the lower and upper stages will be reusable. The first stage will land vertically, like SpaceX’s Falcon 9. The upper stage meanwhile uses a radical nozzle design, a ring of tiny nozzles around the perimeter of a heat shield, to protect it during re-entry.
The company has said it plans the first launch in 2026, but has not been more specific as to when. If successful, this rocket will certainly become a major player, as it will be able to offer even lower prices than SpaceX because none of the rocket will be expendable.
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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
Stoke’s Nova rocket, designed to be
completely reusable.
UPDATE: Stoke Space confirms the story, announcing today that it has raised $510 million in new capital.
According to anonymous sources, the rocket startup Stoke Space is in the process of raising as much as $500 million in private investment capital, with new $2 billion valuation for the company.
Stoke Space, one of the Seattle area’s up-and-coming space startups, is said to be raising hundreds of millions of dollars in a funding round that it hasn’t yet publicly acknowledged. A report about the round, based on two unidentified sources, was published today by The Information.
The Information quoted its sources as saying that the funding round could total as much as $500 million, and would value Stoke at nearly $2 billion. That figure would be roughly twice as much as the $944 million valuation that was cited by Pitchbook as of January. The round’s lead investor is said to be Thomas Tull’s United States Innovative Technology Fund.
Earlier this year Stoke raised $260 million, bringing its available capital to almost a half billion. If this story is confirmed, it means the company will have almost a billion in available cash on hand.
The design of Stoke’s Nova rocket is unique in that both the lower and upper stages will be reusable. The first stage will land vertically, like SpaceX’s Falcon 9. The upper stage meanwhile uses a radical nozzle design, a ring of tiny nozzles around the perimeter of a heat shield, to protect it during re-entry.
The company has said it plans the first launch in 2026, but has not been more specific as to when. If successful, this rocket will certainly become a major player, as it will be able to offer even lower prices than SpaceX because none of the rocket will be expendable.
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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
This is very exciting news about a very exciting launch vehicle. I hope this helps get them into operation as soon as possible.
“If successful, this rocket will certainly become a major player, as it will be able to offer even lower prices than SpaceX because none of the rocket will be expendable.”
Well, possibly. I have not heard any preojected price points from Stoke yet. Theoretically, this *should* result in low operational costs. On the other hand, they certainly would need to make as much of their development costs back as possible. (This is why SpaceX prices its launches well above their actual launch costs right now, after all.) Likewise, SpaceX is going to have a fully reusable launch vehicle before too long, too!
And on the gripping hand, Stoke probably *will* have to consider making their initial price as low as possible, because SpaceX will have certain advantages that Stoke will not possess for a while: a long track record of extreme reliability, more payload mass and volume capability, and high frequency of launch. Price will be the only factor Stoke can leverage.
Stay tuned!
The level of craftsmanship is what impresses me.
Just for funsies…. could their whole launch vehicle fit inside Starship?
That first stage I could see left in place on Mars or Titan for off-world launches.
Starship is a bit unwieldy.
Richard M,
Up to whatever Nova’s maximum payload mass to a given orbit or BEO trajectory turns out to be, it seems likely to be the first vehicle – besides Starship – that can actually play scratch golf against Falcon 9. That’s quite a big deal. And if, as rumored, Stoke soon has a 10-figure bank account, it will be in roughly the same cash position as Relativity was a couple of years back but with a much lower burn rate. That should allow Stoke to weather any development-phase mishaps and get to reliable operations quickly. After that, with the right pricing, cadence should rise with equal alacrity. 2026 and 2027 are looking to be significant years for non-SpaceX reusable rocketry.
Jeff Wright,
Good workmanship is pretty much a minimum ante for serious rocketeers. The only NewSpace firm to deprecate that is Astra – ’nuff said. Good workmanship is simply one of the indispensable bases for frequent and high-reliability launches. It’s necessary, but not sufficient as the mathematicians say. Blue, for example, also makes very pretty hardware, but it doesn’t fly much. Stoke, I have high hopes, will fly both frequently and well in addition to looking good while doing so.
As with Starship, I don’t think there would be any need for Nova first stages to support future launch ops from Mars or Titan. The Nova second stage should be able to land and take off again from either place once refueling infrastructure exists.
Starship is not unwieldy, it’s just big. Not the same thing.
Readers: Stoke has confirmed this story. Refresh your browser to see the added details.
Hi Dick,
Oh, I agree — and this is why it’s so important that Stoke succeed!
SpaceX needs the competition.
The only other player who might even be in a position to think about scratch golf is Rocket Lab, if Neutron fulfills their expectations…not fully reusable, but as close as you can get, I suppose, short of the actual thing. (I’m just not willing to even try characterizing what Blue Origin can/will be able to do. They have the resources; but their execution remains frustrating.)
Nova is definitely the most exciting rocket in development not named “Starship.” I really hope they can pull it off. They have loads of SpaceX alums in place at the company, and now they have some resources, too, so there’s grounds for such hope.
P.S. Thanks for the update, Bob.
I’m hoping they will have an incremental test schedule such that every problem does not become loss of vehicle. Don’t retract the wheels on the first flight. If you’re care, you can get it back for repairs if necessary.
It is looking like Stoke Space is going to be a contender, to be somebody. This is good, because we need one. It isn’t that SpaceX is holding back the industry by overcharging as a monopoly, but there has not yet been a reason for the company to bring down its prices so that even more companies can afford to do business in space.
We put our hopes on Blue Origin, but it is taking forever. I put low hopes on ULA, because it barely embraced the reusability that makes the Falcons so available and allows SpaceX a tidy profit. Now I am putting high hopes on Stoke Space to put pressure on SpaceX for even lower-cost access to space.
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Richard M wrote: “Stoke probably *will* have to consider making their initial price as low as possible, because SpaceX will have certain advantages that Stoke will not possess for a while: a long track record of extreme reliability, more payload mass and volume capability, and high frequency of launch.”
There are three main areas, or factors, in which a company can have an advantage over other companies: price, quality, and availability. Although it is hard to beat other companies at all three, SpaceX managed to do that with its Falcons, resulting in a large demand. As Red Adair is said to have said: “I can do it cheap; I can do it well; I can do it fast. Choose two.”
There is a fourth factor that we could also consider: customer service. This was the advantage that NanoRacks has in acting as an intermediary between NASA and customers that want to fly experiments on the ISS. NASA has complex rules, and NanoRacks helps small companies navigate through those rules and other red tape.
“Price will be the only factor Stoke can leverage.”
At least for now, but that is one of the things that makes free market competition so good.
The good news for Stoke is that SpaceX has created a price umbrella, a maximum price point that customers can compare their services to. If they can operate their rockets for a low cost, then Stoke has an advantage in which they could choose to make a good profit or to undercut SpaceX in a dramatic way that brings the customers running to Stoke instead of SpaceX.
As for what Stoke Space will charge, we must remember that the market here is not entirely natural. The Pentagon is quite willing to pay more for launches in order to guarantee it has multiple rocket companies to rely on, for strategic and tactical military reasons.
It also is willing to buy launches generously to help new companies get started. Expect Stoke to pick up some of these contracts at very generous prices.
I looked up Stoke’s payload to LEO, from their website: 3,000 kg to LEO (100% reusable)
7,000 kg to LEO (max payload)
F9 for comparison per wokipedia: FT: 22,800 kg (50,300 lb)[1] when expended,
17,500 kg (38,600 lb)[5] when landing on drone ship.
Awesome name, I’m stoked. Neat to see innovation in the heat shield. Evidently investors think there’s a market for smaller efficient rockets. Sometimes costs don’t scale down at the same rate as size for complex things, so It’ll be interesting to see where it goes.
I was beginning to think I would never see a plug-nozzle fly in my lifetime.
Robert Zimmerman wrote: “… we must remember that the market here is not entirely natural. The Pentagon is quite willing to pay more for launches in order to guarantee it has multiple rocket companies to rely on, for strategic and tactical military reasons. It also is willing to buy launches generously to help new companies get started.”
I have been thinking about this comment, and it is not necessarily a bad thing to deviate this way from the natural market, at least for now. The government (NASA, NOAA, the Pentagon) has spent half a century harming America’s commercial launch industry, again with an unnatural market. Commercial companies have launched on Ariane rockets and other foreign rockets, because the Pentagon had made ULA launchers, the remaining U.S. medium and heavy launch company, cost more than commercial companies could afford. This was the brilliance of SpaceX’s Falcons, which reduced launch costs for customers to a price range that many more could afford, and the number of space operations companies increased from a few (communication and then also earth observation) to scores or maybe hundreds (including space station services, lunar exploration, manufacturing, and space station operators).
Right now, the commercial launch industry needs some amount of assistance to overcome the harm that has already happened. SpaceX has shown how to overcome the disadvantage, but early on it depended upon government contracts, mostly because until the past couple of years there was not enough commercial business to keep a commercial launch industry robust.
There are some commercial constellations that are beginning to launch that could keep medium and heavy launch vehicles busy for the next few years.
SpaceX has been launching a lot of small satellites that the smaller launch vehicles could have been launching, if only those companies could ramp up their operations — or even get their launch vehicles operational. Or not go out of business due to governmental red tape.*
We have seen with Boeing and Lockheed Martin, then with ULA, that the government does not have enough launches to keep even a single company employed enough to stay in business. Things may be a little different with the Space Force starting to launch large numbers of small satellites rather than the small number of large satellites. The Space Force may have enough launches to keep a few small launch companies in business for a while. This could help startup companies, but could it really help the larger, stalwart, heritage companies (Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, Aerojet Rocketdyne)?
Some of the startup launch companies are beginning to show that they can provide tactical military services. Rocket Lab recently was able to launch a couple of small satellites on short notice, proving that the concept is feasible. This required having a rocket available for short-notice launches, as well as the ability to prepare a launch quickly without much advance notice. Traditional launches have been known for a couple of years in advance, because a rocket had to be ordered well in advance, in time to be built specifically for a satellite or series of satellites to launch on. The military may have a reduced influence on the launch market, but it is still shaping some aspects of this industry.
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* The loss of Virgin Orbit was a terrible blow to the entire space industry and may have had an affect on how space companies do business. How many small launch companies left the business and redefined their business models before Virgin was driven out of business and how many after? The U.K. still has so much red tape that its launch sites are not yet busy, and Australia’s red tape is almost as bad.
The U.S. has so much red tape for reentry that Varda prefers the red tape of Australia for its reentry vehicle licenses. I think we see that red tape makes for another way that the market here is not entirely natural. The launch industry has been able to get the Eastern Range and the Wester Range to be able to handle far more launches than it traditionally handled, but the reentry industry still needs to do the same for payloads that return from space. Is this why there are so few private crew launches on Dragon? Is there too much red tape for returning Dragon from orbit for there to be many commercial missions?