An RS1 missile amplifier is subjected to acceptance tests.
ABL Space
Rocket builder ABL Space closed a $ 170 million round of funding, the company announced on Thursday, becoming the latest private space company to reach the unicorn rating mark.
ABL raised funds from T. Rowe Price and Fidelity Management, as well as a third unnamed investment firm and existing investors, at a valuation of $ 1.3 billion.
“We have always been proud of the efficiency of our capital,” ABL CEO Harry O’Hanley told CNBC, noting that the company has so far spent “well under” $ 50 million.
“If you compare us to other companies that spend hundreds of millions of dollars developing launch vehicles, you should see how differentiated our basic approach must be to achieve this,” O’Hanley added.
The company has so far raised $ 49 million in venture capital so far, with investors including Venrock, New Science Ventures, Lynett Capital and Lockheed Martin Ventures. ABL also announced nearly $ 45 million in contracts from the Air Force Research Laboratory and AFWERX, with the company declaring on Thursday that it has contracts from ten “separate clients” from a mix of commercial and government clients.
“We believe that the global space economy has significant long-term growth potential,” said Jason Adams, portfolio manager of T. Rowe Price’s Global Industrial Fund, in a statement. “We believe that ABL has a management team, a set of technology and a product strategy that should enable long-term competitive advantages.”
The first stage of the company’s RS1 missile after the completion of welding.
ABL Space
ABL’s RS1 rocket is 88 feet high and is designed to launch up to 1,350 kilograms (or nearly 1½ tons) of payload into Earth’s low orbit – at a cost of $ 12 million per launch. This puts RS1 in the middle of the commercial launch market, between Rocket Lab’s smaller Electron for $ 7 million and Falcon 9, hard from SpaceX, for $ 62 million.
ABL also opposes several companies that develop “medium lift” missiles. Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit recently reached orbit, while ABL is with Relativity Space and Firefly Aerospace for the company’s first launches later this year.
In addition to the economic approach to the ABL missile development process, the company also supports the efficiency of its GS0 implementable ground system. It is essentially the bar bone of a launch facility – the erector, power supply, electricity, control center and more – all packed in a few standard shipping containers.
One of the shipping containers that has the GS0 implementable launch system infrastructure.
ABL Space
O’Hanley told CNBC in January that ABL’s missile program was already “fully funded” by its first mission, and on Thursday said the additional $ 170 million in capital “will give us the opportunity to set up for increasing the launch rate to meet all the demand we see in 2022 and beyond. “
“It will also allow us to start carefully exploring more opportunities in both space technology and other areas,” O’Hanley said.
The new ABL valuation also makes it the latest space enterprise to pass the unicorn mark of an valuation of over $ 1 billion. The company is now among the most valuable in the growing space industry, which is led by SpaceX with a valuation of $ 74 billion and followed by a variety of companies that have announced SPAC transactions in the past six months.
Dan Piemont, ABL’s president and chief financial officer, shared his views on the company’s new status.
“We don’t see our assessment as an achievement as much as a serious responsibility to deliver value,” Piedmont told CNBC. “We never optimized for evaluation and kept most of our achievements private. We know we still have a lot to prove. We aim to build a sustainable company with the best people, customers and investors in the world. “
“We hope this round shows that something special is happening under the hood here at ABL. If you want to know more about what it is, contact us,” Piedmont added.