Since he became one of the first investors in rocketry startup Relativity Space, Dallas serial entrepreneur Mark Cuban has watched the company grow into one of the largest players in the private space industry.
Relativity’s most recent raise came this week, with the company announcing a $500 million Series D round, which brings the startup’s valuation to more than $2 billion. The round was led by Tiger Global Management. And like nearly every round that Relativity has raised, Cuban was among the 16 other investors on the round.
Other existing investors on the round were Bond Capital, K5 Capital, Playground Global, Tribe Capital, 3L Capital and Allen & Co. New investors on the round included Fidelity, ICONIQ Capital, XN Capital, Senator Investment Group, Baillie Gifford, General Catalyst and Elad Gil.
“This past year drove change in every industry, including aerospace,” Relativity co-founder and CEO Tim Ellis said in a statement. “With this new Series D funding, we will now dramatically accelerate the development of our long-term plans and look beyond first launch.”
According to CNBC, Relativity’s valuation makes it the second most valuable private space company, behind Elon Musk-owned SpaceX, which is valued at more than $46 billion. However, it should be noted that data was taken from Pitchbook, which doesn’t include Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, since he solely funds the endeavor.
Relativity was launched in 2015 by former Blue Origin engineer Ellis and former SpaceX engineer Jordan Noone. The company focuses on rockets and spacecraft from 3D-printed materials. The company is hoping to launch a craft into orbit by the end of next year, with future plans of delivering small 3D printers to the surface of Mars to help with construction of a potential human-operated facility there.
“If we are going to live on Mars, it is inevitable that this factory of the future must exist to build humanity’s industrial base once there,” Ellis said.
The most recent funding marks a series of moves Relativity has been making since closing on its $140 million Series C in October of last year. Since then, it has moved from Seattle to Long Beach, Calif., where it operates a 120,000 square-foot facility. It has also grown to more than 230 employees.
Since Relativity’s seed round, Cuban has been a backer of the company. That $620,000 funding came in 2016 and included Y Combinator and entrepreneur David Spector. In an interview at the CB Insights A-ha Conference in 2018, Ellis said the relationship started with a cold email titled “Space is sexy: 3D printing an entire rocket.” The pitch worked, with the Dallas Mavericks owner chipping in $500,000 for that seed round.
“It worked out, I think our team is very strong,” Ellis said of Cuban’s investment at the CB Insights event.
In addition to Relativity, Cuban has made a number of investments in recent month, mostly in the seed and Series A stages. In September he participated in $6 million round for Los Angeles-based skin and personal care brand Art of Sport and a $3 million round for tree-free toilet paper startup Cloud Paper. Those were followed by October investments in DataFleets and Lighyear, as well as an oversubscribed $2.3 million seed round for McKinney-based ShearShare, which he participated in as the sole LP for ArlanWasHere Investments.
