The Exploration Company raises $450m for Nyx capsule and Storm engine

The Exploration Company announced a $450 million Series C on September 8 to advance its Nyx cargo capsule and Storm rocket-engine programmes. The Exploration Company $450m round takes the company’s reported total funding to about $680 million, but the company did not disclose a valuation.

Bessemer Venture Partners, Atomico and the Scaleup Europe Fund, which is managed by EQT, co-led the financing. Existing backers Balderton, Plural, Cherry and Red River West also participated, according to Tech.eu and The Next Web. Bessemer partner Alex Ferrara is set to join the board.

The financing is a substantial capital commitment to two hardware programmes at very different stages: a reusable cargo capsule intended to reach a space station and return to Earth, and a high-thrust engine that has yet to fire. That distinction matters more than the company’s record-round claims, which remain company assertions rather than independently established comparisons.

What will The Exploration Company use $450m for?

TEC says it will use the new capital to move Nyx toward a planned International Space Station mission, in which the reusable capsule would dock with the station and return to Earth. Nyx is designed to carry cargo to current and future space stations, with crew transport presented as a later possibility.

The other focus is Storm, an oxygen-and-methane engine using a full-flow staged-combustion design. The company is developing it for a prospective reusable European heavy-lift launcher designed, according to TEC, to carry as much as 40 tonnes to low Earth orbit. Storm has been under development for three years, CEO Hélène Huby told Bloomberg, as reported by The Next Web.

TEC’s stated test sequence starts with pre-burners and a subscale thrust chamber, followed by an oxygen-rich power-pack test and then a full engine prototype. The Next Web reported that Storm had not fired at the time of the funding announcement. The company expects the funding to support testing from late 2026 through 2028.

A launcher programme without a procurement

Storm’s commercial and strategic case depends on more than its engineering schedule. TEC is building the engine for a future European heavy launcher, but the European Space Agency had not announced a competition for such a vehicle, according to The Next Web. ESA’s current European Launcher Challenge is focused on small and medium launchers.

That leaves TEC funding a propulsion programme ahead of a defined public procurement. Huby has said she expects ESA to open a next-generation competition by the end of the decade, but that is an expectation, not an announced programme.

TEC also says it has more than $2 billion in contracts and commitments, including work with ESA and a NASA Space Act Agreement. The company has not published a breakdown between binding contracts and other commitments, The Next Web reported. It says the raise is the largest Series C by a European space company and the largest funding round for an EU-headquartered company led by a female founder and chief executive; those claims have not been independently verified in the supplied reporting.

• Round: $450 million Series C
• Co-leads: Bessemer Venture Partners, Atomico and Scaleup Europe Fund
• Total funding: About $680 million
• Valuation: Not disclosed

This story draws on original reporting from Sifted.