Stoke Space raises $1 billion to accelerate fully reusable launch
The financing advances the development of Stoke’s core reuse technologies, alongside manufacturing, test, launch and recovery infrastructure to support high-cadence operations. Stoke’s Nova Pathfinder vehicle is approaching its first flight.
Stoke Space Technologies, an American rocket company developing fully and rapidly reusable launch vehicles, has announced that it has completed an initial closing of its billion-dollar Series E financing round.
This funding brings Stoke’s total capital raised to USD 2.3 billion and will support the company as it prepares for its first orbital launch, expands production and launch capacity, and accelerates development of its larger Nova Block 2 launch vehicle, Stoke said in a press release.
The round was co-led by Point72 Ventures and Spark Capital, with participation from General Innovation, Glade Brook Capital, US Innovation Technology, Washington Harbour Partners, Woven Capital, Y Combinator, and other new and existing investors.
“Stoke is pursuing what we see as one of the most important opportunities in space transportation: making launch fully reusable, reliable and scalable,” said Chris Morales, Partner at Point72 Ventures. “Having supported Stoke through multiple stages of its growth, we believe this company has demonstrated both the exceptional technical progress and the ambition to build a launch system capable of serving the market at industrial scale. That progress has strengthened our conviction in the team.”
“Every mature transportation system is built around fully reusable vehicles. It’s the only way to reach the cost floor while scaling availability. Space transportation will be no different,” said Andy Lapsa, co-founder and CEO of Stoke. “We are humbled by the trust our investors and customers have placed in us in pursuit of this critical generational challenge.”
The financing advances the development of Stoke’s core reuse technologies, alongside manufacturing, test, launch and recovery infrastructure to support high-cadence operations. Stoke’s Nova Pathfinder vehicle is approaching its first flight. Pathfinder will carry payloads to orbit while proving Nova’s core architecture, full reuse technologies, and operational capabilities. Stoke is targeting early 2027 for the first orbital launch of Pathfinder.
The Series E funding also supports an expanded product roadmap.
“Full reusability is the inevitable end state of the market, providing an order-of-magnitude cost and service advantage over partially reusable rockets,” said Clay Fisher, General Partner at Spark Capital. “Stoke had the right thesis seven years ago and has paired that prescient vision with a blistering pace of execution. As a result, they stand uniquely positioned to give customers more choice and capacity when they need it, and to unlock an enormous new economy in space.
