A Houston-based technology company landed new funding to develop its hypersonic aircraft.
Venus Aerospace raised a $20 million Series A financing round led by Prime Movers Lab, a Jackson, Wyoming-based investment group focused on breakthrough scientific inventions, the firms announced April 5. The Series A also included contributions from returning Venus investors, including Draper Associates, Boost, Saturn 5, Seraph Group, Cantos, The Helm and Tamarack Global.
The Houston technology company is building a zero-emission, hypersonic spaceplane, which Venus Aerospace says could deliver passengers from Los Angeles to Tokyo in one hour. Venus Aerospace was founded by CEO Sassie Duggleby, who previously served as launch system engineering and mission management consultant for Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit, and CTO Andrew Duggleby, who previously led launch operations for Virgin.
"In the past year, with our initial funding, we have scaled from three people to 40. These are the world's best rocket scientists, engineers and operators," said Sassie Duggleby. "With this funding, we will continue to push forward toward our next technical milestones, hire great people and scale our organization."
Venus Aerospace plans use the proceeds from the $20 million funding round to mature its key technologies, including its next-generation rocket engine, the aircraft's shape and its cooling systems. Andrew Duggleby said the Series A capital will also enable Venus to perform flight and engine testing from the Houston Spaceport. The firm was co-founded by the Dugglebys in 2020 and established a presence at the Houston Spaceport last year.
"Bringing this technology forward into systems, drones and ultimately spaceplanes, it will take both new space veterans and bright new minds to solve," Andrew Duggleby said. "We've gone from impossible to hard, and this investment will allow us to knock down the next few steps."
Including the Series A funds, Venus Aerospace has raised total funding of $33 million. Venus closed on a $3 million seed funding round led by Prime Movers Lab in March 2021. The firm has also received $1 million in non-dilutive government funding.
Venus Aerospace is one of several aerospace technology companies in the Houston market. This week, Houston-based Axiom Space is slated to launch the first fully private crew to the International Space Station. Axiom's Ax-1 mission is now targeting its launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, no earlier than March 8.
Space technology and aerospace infrastructure companies are building out facilities at the Houston Spaceport at Ellington Airport in southeast Houston, including Axiom Space, Houston-based Intuitive Machines and North Carolina-based Collins Aerospace.
