On Nov. 12, Firefly Aerospace (Cedar Park, Texas, U.S.) closed an oversubscribed $175 million Series D round at a valuation of more than $2 billion. The Series D round was led by new investor, RPM Ventures. In addition to RPM Ventures, the round included existing investors as well as multiple new investors, including GiantLeap Capital and Human Element.

“Few companies can say they’ve defined a new category in their industry —  Firefly is one of those,” says Marc Weiser from RPM Ventures. “They have captured their niche in the market as a full-service provider for responsive space missions and have become the pinnacle of what a modern space and defense technology company looks like.”

Firefly’s core business focuses on providing customers with responsive space services across its launch, lunar and on-orbit programs. According to the company, this capability was proven during the Victus Nox mission where the Firefly team met the U.S. Space Force’s requirement of encapsuling and launching a payload following a 24-hour notice. Firefly says it set an industry record, defined a new industry category and continues to improve that timeline with each Alpha mission.

“Firefly is grateful for our existing and new investors whose support demonstrates a vote of confidence in our capabilities and future,” says Jason Kim, CEO of Firefly Aerospace. “Prior to joining the company, I had an opportunity to see behind the scenes and witness the mission Firefly executed flawlessly! I believe this is what has defined us in the market and continues to drive the investor demand that allowed us to move from term sheet to close in just 2 months. The best is yet to come.”

In addition to its responsive launch operations, Firefly stands ready to begin its inaugural Blue Ghost mission to the moon as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Service (CLPS) initiative. The team is concurrently preparing for multiple Alpha launches as part of its contracted missions with Lockheed Martin, L3Harris, True Anomaly, NASA and NOAA while co-developing a medium launch vehicle (MLV) with Northrop Grumman. In parallel, the company is completing final preparations for its first Elytra mission, a configurable spacecraft that provides on-orbit services and a deep space communication network.

Known for its highly efficient use of capital, Firefly plans to allocate the new capital to expand market reach with its Elytra spacecraft, move to full-rate production of its Alpha launch vehicle, and accelerate hardware qualification for new vehicles in development.