The Exploration Company Nabs $450 Million to Challenge SpaceX
- The Exploration Company closed a $450 million Series C funding round on Tuesday, with Bessemer Venture Partners, Atomico, and the Scaleup Europe Fund co-leading the investment.
- Most of this capital is directed toward Storm, a high-thrust reusable engine designed for a future heavy-lift launcher carrying up to 40 tonnes to low Earth orbit.
- ArianeGroup is developing Prometheus, a competing reusable engine that has been hot-firing since 2022, while TEC's strategy depends on the European Space Agency eventually opening a heavy-lift competition.
- French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen praised the company, with the Scaleup Europe Fund, managed by EQT, part-funding the round.
- Pre-Burner and subscale chamber tests for the Storm engine begin in the coming months, while TEC expects a demonstration flight of the Nyx capsule in 2028 to validate operational capability.
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The 48-year-old French entrepreneur, with a prestigious pedigree, founded The Exploration Company, a private Franco-German start-up specializing in space transport, which is positioned to challenge the company of Elon Musk.
Europe's biggest space round goes to a rocket engine
The Exploration Company has raised $450m. Most of it goes into something the company is not yet famous for. Not Nyx, the reusable capsule that has drawn the contracts and the SpaceX comparisons. An engine. Kate Duffy reported the round for Bloomberg. Founder and chief executive Hélène Huby told her why the balance falls that […] This story continues at The Next Web
The Exploration Company (TEC), which develops a reusable space capsule, managed to attract $450 million in funding, a record for a mature company in the European space sector, announced its representatives, on Tuesday, on the eve of the International Space Summit, which will take place in Paris.
European SpaceX Rival Raises $450 Million to Build Rocket Engine
The Exploration Company Gmbh has raised $450 million in funding to help boost the development of Europe’s first reusable space capsule and a new rocket engine, which the SpaceX rival has said would be the largest in the region.
The start-up The Exploration Company, based in Haillan, near Bordeaux, is making a record-breaking fundraising effort to accelerate the development of its Nyx capsule and future reusable engine
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