Less than a year after landing a $95 million Series B, space manufacturing company Apex locked up a $200 million Series C led by 8VC and Point72 Ventures.
The round also included investment from the likes of Andreessen Horowitz, Washington Harbour Partners and StepStone Group.
The Los Angeles-based startup is helping streamline the approach to satellites with the ability to mass produce spacecraft buses — the main body and structural component of satellites — to help meet increasing demand from customers like the U.S. Department of Defense.
“Apex’s approach to building spacecraft is key to America realizing its commercial and national security strategies in space,” said founder and CEO Ian Cinnamon. “This successful raise accelerates our production, allowing Apex to expand its inventory ahead of demand to better enable the missions of our innovative customers, including defense primes, the U.S. government and some of the most exciting companies in the country.”
Space cash
Defense tech has seen increasing attention from investors, as more and more money has poured into the sector.
However, so far space tech investment has been slow. Only $1.7 billion was invested in VC-backed startups in Q1, per Crunchbase data. Last year saw a total of $12.5 billion invested in space tech for the whole year.
However, the sector has seen some big rounds this year, including reusable rocket startup Stoke Space locking up a $260 million Series C and Epirus raising a $250 million Series D.
