Spacecraft startup Apex tops $1 billion valuation as US space-defense systems demand soars

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By Joey Roulette

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Apex Space, one of a growing number of U.S. startups building a speedy production line of spacecraft platforms, closed a $200 million funding round on Friday that brought its valuation to $1 billion as the Pentagon signals enormous demand for defense systems in space.

The Los Angeles-based startup’s Series D round was led by Interlagos, a venture capital firm founded by former senior finance heads at Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Existing investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Point72 Ventures and 8VC.

Apex, founded in 2022, builds satellite buses designed to host commercial and government payloads, such as Earth-imaging capabilities and sensors for missile-tracking and defense. The company said its latest funding round will help speed spacecraft production by 50% and more than double the size of its manufacturing facilities.

The Trump administration’s $175 billion Golden Dome missile defense initiative announced this year has supercharged private interest in low-Earth orbiting satellite constellations, a market so far dominated by SpaceX and its sprawling Starlink network.

Hundreds of U.S. defense contractors have expressed interest in partaking in the missile defense project, though details of the overall architecture and development timeline remain murky.

The Golden Dome concept includes space-based interceptors meant to shoot down ballistic missiles with missiles launched from space, a politically controversial and physically complex endeavor.

Apex, in a statement, said Golden Dome was among the space programs in which its spacecraft could play a role, though it was unclear exactly what that participation would look like.

The demand from the Pentagon is driven by surging military and geopolitical competition in space among the U.S., Russia and China. Beijing has invested billions into its own space companies to build similar satellite swarms capable of supporting military operations on Earth and in space.

In the U.S., the speed with which companies can produce satellites is a key prong in the emerging space security race, a culture shift in traditional satellite manufacturing that for decades has been centered largely on large and expensive systems that take years to build.

(Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Jamie Freed)