(Bloomberg) -- Funds backed by the governments of France and Germany are investing in a three-year-old startup that’s leading European efforts to build an alternative to Elon Musk’s Dragon space capsule.
The Exploration Company GmbH completed its largest funding round, raising $160 million from investors such as French Tech Souveraineté and Germany’s DeepTech and Climate Fonds, the company announced.
London-based Balderton Capital and Plural UK Management Ltd. are co-leaders of the round, according to Exploration, which didn’t disclose its valuation.
The company will use the new money to fund development of the Nyx, a modular and reusable space capsule, it said.
Exploration launched a prototype in June and plans on sending another aboard a SpaceX rocket next year, with the first mission not expected until 2028.
After it’s complete the Nyx could be used to transport cargo to the International Space Station and commercial stations such as Starlab, a project under development by Airbus SE, Mitsubishi Corp. and Voyager Space Holdings Inc.
Unlike the Dragon capsule, designed for launch by SpaceX rockets, Exploration’s Nyx will be “launch agnostic,” capable of traveling to space aboard rockets from different countries, according to Chief Executive Officer Helene Huby.
“It makes a big difference when you can show to a country that you are using a critical asset of the country,” she said in an interview. “That’s a big differentiator” with SpaceX.
While the startup has plans to work on other projects, such as reusable rocket engines, and eventually have an initial public offering, those will take a back seat to development of the Nyx capsule, Huby said.
“Long-term, we would like to be a transportation company end to end,” she said, adding that for now “the company and like 99% of the team is very focused on the capsule.”
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