{"id":17530,"date":"2021-07-02T01:19:38","date_gmt":"2021-07-01T17:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/astra-space-launches-its-first-day-of-public-trading-with-backing-from-craig-mccaw-and-bill-gates\/"},"modified":"2021-07-02T01:19:38","modified_gmt":"2021-07-01T17:19:38","slug":"astra-space-launches-its-first-day-of-public-trading-with-backing-from-craig-mccaw-and-bill-gates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/astra-space-launches-its-first-day-of-public-trading-with-backing-from-craig-mccaw-and-bill-gates\/","title":{"rendered":"Astra Space launches its first day of public trading with backing from Craig McCaw and Bill Gates"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_628471\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-628471\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-628471\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/210630-astra3-630x388.jpg\" alt=\"Astra Rocket 3.2\" width=\"630\" height=\"388\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/210630-astra3-630x388.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/210630-astra3-768x473.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/210630-astra3.jpg 993w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-628471\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Astra\u2019s Rocket 3.2 sits on its Alaska launch pad before its liftoff in December 2020. (Astra Photo \/ John Kraus)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A California-based space venture called Astra marked its first day as a publicly traded company today, completing a financial transition in which Seattle-area telecom pioneer Craig McCaw played a key role.<\/p>\n<p>Astra went public on Nasdaq by virtue of a transaction with Holicity \u2014 a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, that was headed by McCaw and headquartered in Kirkland, Wash. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates provided financial backing for Holicity through a sponsoring fund called Pendrell Corp.<\/p>\n<p>The Astra-Holicity business combination,&nbsp;first announced in February, was approved on Wednesday by Holicity\u2019s shareholders. The transaction valued Astra at more than $2 billion, and brought in about $500 million in cash proceeds that Astra will use to accelerate growth and develop its space services platform.<\/p>\n<p>Nasdaq\u2019s ticker symbol for Astra common stock is ASTR, and the symbol ASTRW is being used for Astra warrants.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecoming a public company is an important milestone in our mission to improve life on Earth from space,\u201d Chris Kemp, Astra\u2019s founder, chairman and CEO, said in a news release that heralded Holicity\u2019s final signoff on the deal. \u201cAll of us at Astra are humbled by the opportunity to have the support of public shareholders and are grateful to the many people who have contributed so much to help us realize our vision of a healthier and more connected planet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McCaw \u2014 a veteran of ventures ranging from McCaw Cellular to Nextel to Teledesic \u2014 was the chairman and CEO of Holicity. He and Michael Lehman, Sun Microsystems\u2019 former chief financial officer, will join Astra\u2019s board of directors in connection with the business combination.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"CEO of Bill Gates-backed space company Astra on its Nasdaq debut\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Bk5BoBH5YZQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am excited to support Chris and his talented team as Astra begins the next chapter as a public company,\u201d McCaw said.<\/p>\n<p>Kemp praised McCaw and Lehman as \u201cseasoned leaders who bring immense collective experience in public technology company operations that will be beneficial to Astra and its shareholders.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Holicity\u2019s price ended Wednesday\u2019s trading session at $12.35 a share. Astra\u2019s share price was $12.30 at the start of today\u2019s trading session, and $12.90 at closing.<\/p>\n<p>Last December, Astra launched a test rocket into space for the first time from Alaska\u2019s Pacific Spaceport Complex, narrowly missing orbital velocity. The five-year-old company says it has more than 50 launches under contract and plans to begin delivering payloads to low Earth orbit this summer. Its business plan foresees going to daily launches by 2025.<\/p>\n<p>McCaw, meanwhile, has other ventures in mind: Soon after the Astra-Holicity deal was announced, McCaw founded yet another SPAC called Colicity, which&nbsp;has a $345 million war chest&nbsp;and is focused on technology, media and telecom investments.<\/p>\n<p><em>This report was first published at 5:43 p.m. June 30 and updated with the start of public trading.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Astra\u2019s Rocket 3.2 sits on its Alaska launch pad before its liftoff in December 2020. (Astra Photo \/ John Kraus) A California-based space venture called Astra marked its first day as a publicly traded company today, completing a financial transition in which Seattle-area telecom pioneer Craig McCaw played a key role. Astra went public on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1941,4642,4734,4735,4736],"class_list":["post-17530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-astra","tag-astra-space","tag-craig-mccaw","tag-holicity","tag-spacs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17530"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17530\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}