{"id":58564,"date":"2020-11-23T18:47:38","date_gmt":"2020-11-23T10:47:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/relativity-space-completes-500m-funding-round-to-accelerate-multi-planetary-vision\/"},"modified":"2020-11-23T18:47:38","modified_gmt":"2020-11-23T10:47:38","slug":"relativity-space-completes-500m-funding-round-to-accelerate-multi-planetary-vision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/relativity-space-completes-500m-funding-round-to-accelerate-multi-planetary-vision\/","title":{"rendered":"Relativity Space Completes $500M Funding Round\u00a0to Accelerate Multi-Planetary Vision"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Relativity Space<\/b> has closed a $500 million Series D round, the company announced Monday. This capital will accelerate Relativity\u2019s long-term plans for a multi-planetary future beyond the first launch of its 3D printed rocket in 2021, Tim Ellis told Via Satellite<\/em>. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe new funding round comes at a time when we\u2019re looking to accelerate our long-term plans at Relativity,\u201d Ellis said. \u201cWe\u2019ve built the world\u2019s first 3D-printing factory for aerospace, and our \u2018factory of the future\u2019 has the world\u2019s largest metal 3D printers. We\u2019re also continuing our launch vehicle developments, as well as 3D printing technologies, and building towards humanity\u2019s multi-planetary future which is our long-term vision and goal.\u201d <\/p>\n

This is Relativity Space\u2019s largest funding round to date, bringing total capital raised to $685.7 million. New investor Tiger Global Management<\/b> led the round with participation from other new investors Fidelity Management & Research Company<\/b>, Baillie Gifford<\/b>, ICONIQ Capital<\/b>, General Catalyst<\/b>, XN<\/b>, Senator Investment Group<\/b>, and Elad Gil. Existing investors participating in the round include BOND<\/b>, Tribe Capital<\/b>, K5 Global<\/b>, 3L<\/b>, Playground Global<\/b>, Mark Cuban, Spencer Rascoff, and Allen & Company LLC<\/b>, and others. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis particular group of investors is just absolutely world class \u2014 it\u2019s not just the size of the funding round, it\u2019s really the confidence that these iconic investors have in our plans and what we\u2019re building towards,\u201d Ellis said. <\/p>\n

This investment round caps off a very busy year for Relativity. The company recently secured its first U.S. government mission when Lockheed Martin<\/b> selected Relativity to launch its cryogenic fluid management mission for NASA<\/strong>\u2019s Tipping Point program. Relativity also signed a customer launch agreement with Iridium<\/b> to launch NEXT constellation ground spares; received Right of Entry to develop a rocket site at Vandenberg Air Force Base; and completed a full duration Mission Duty Cycle test of its Aeon 1 rocket engine. In addition, Relativity opened a new headquarters and manufacturing facility in February and has increased its headcount to more than 230 employees. <\/p>\n

The coming year will be critical, as Relativity is on track for the first flight of its Terran 1 orbital rocket in late 2021, the world\u2019s first 3D-printed rocket. <\/p>\n

Ellis said that Relativity\u2019s approach with 3D printing makes the company much more than another small launch company in development. 3D printing gives Relativity the ability to customize the launch vehicle to customer needs, and continue to do that as those needs change over time. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look at 3D printing it\u2019s much more of an automation technology. We\u2019re really at the forefront of a transition that I believe is inevitable toward software-defined manufacturing for aerospace, and 3D printing is how we accomplish that,\u201d Ellis said. \u201cI strongly believe what we\u2019re building at Relativity is inevitable, and we\u2019re just the first company to really work to make it happen.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ellis said Relativity will have more to share in the coming year about its work toward a multi-planetary future, made possible by the capital of this investment round. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always felt that there needed to be a second company [aside from SpaceX<\/strong>] working to make humanity multi-planetary, and it was obvious to me that 3D printing was the only way that was actually going to happen,\u201d Ellis said. \u201cI really am passionate about the idea that we need to inspire dozens to hundreds of companies to go after this long-term vision to make it a reality. Relativity is the company that\u2019s going to build the industrial base to actually make that happen.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Relativity Space has closed a $500 million Series D round, the company announced Monday. This capital will accelerate Relativity\u2019s long-term plans for a multi-planetary future beyond the first launch of its 3D printed rocket in 2021, Tim Ellis told Via Satellite.  \u201cThe new funding round comes at a time when we\u2019re looking to accelerate our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58565,"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":[],"class_list":["post-58564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58564"}],"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=58564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}