The Exploration Company Raises $450M to Rival SpaceX

The space industry is currently worth about $650 billion globally, growing nearly 50 percent since 2020, which is certainly impressive. But over the next decade, the total market opportunity in the space industry is expected to grow even faster, reaching anywhere from 1.8 trillion to infinity dollars, depending on whether you ask Goldman Sachs or Elon Musk, respectively.

What’s even more interesting than the valuation projections, however, is the disagreement that seems to have emerged over the revenue proportions each major demand driver can realistically be expected to account for. Since SpaceX’s IPO, the investment world has rather naturally started to allow itself to be wooed once more by the prospects of bright, shiny objects like lunar robotic manufacturing and tourism, etc. But through 2035, at least, forecasts grounded in more practical data — like the launch schedules announced by various governments — generally agree that satellite-based services will remain the principal catalysts.

The remaining problem lies in determining what services, specifically, will be the biggest sources of growth, and in that light, it might be better for investors to hitch their wagons to companies that have relative flexibility in terms of their expected CapEx commitments. That is, if you’re betting on winners, it might be worthwhile to consider companies on the younger side of the commercial space industry, like The Exploration Company (TEC), which just raised €387 million (about $450 million) in its Series C. Headquartered in Munich and Bordeaux, the company also has a Houston-based subsidiary, TEC Federal, which allows the company to compete for US government contracts.

This is TEC’s first raise since late 2024, when it brought in $150 million, resulting in an all-time funding total of $680 million since the company’s 2021 founding. TEC uses metal AM from ATLIX (previously Trumpf’s AM brand) for its flagship product, the reusable Nyx capsule, which TEC plans to launch for the first time in 2028. TEC also made a notable acquisition at the end of last year, taking over Thrustworks Additive Manufacturing GmbH, a German company that specializes in printing high-value metals, including refractories such as C103 niobium, for propulsion components.

Moreover, as European Spaceflight reported back in June, TEC very briefly included references to a reusable rocket project called Yrene, with the company then removing the references to the project shortly thereafter, and telling European Spaceflight that Yrene is “a long-term concept.” Given how politically sensitive is any issue that involves a non-Chinese threat to SpaceX, TEC may have been pulling a savvily Muskesque move with the momentary Yrene announcement, but I’m a highly speculative sort.

If TEC ultimately avoids building rockets, though, there could be good reason for that. SpaceX has built one of the most vertically integrated companies in the world, but it’s not necessarily the case that this will turn out to be the best way to build the launch supply chain in the long run. Maybe it is, but we don’t know, which brings me back to my point about betting on a horse that isn’t overly committed to a single strategy: if vertical integration increasingly proves to be suboptimal as the space industry continues to evolve, then it will leave a serious opening for newcomers.

TEC leaves itself with plenty of room for agility in terms of responding to demand signals in the years ahead, and it can now support whatever direction it decides to go in with the largest-ever funding round for a European space company. The space industry may become much more competitive as it heads toward its 2035 growth targets.

Featured image courtesy of The Exploration Company