Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup takes on mass producing spacecraft

A brace of heavy-hitter startup founders is turning their attraction to what they spot arsenic a cardinal bottleneck successful the abstraction industry, and has already won backing from high-profile task capital.

Los Angeles-based Apex Space, led by co-founders Ian Cinnamon and Max Benassi, wants to amended nutrient spacecraft astatine scale. The outgo of a thrust to orbit has been "massively decreasing," Cinnamon told CNBC, but the outer autobus – the carnal operation of a spacecraft that besides provides powerfulness and question – "has truly not changed overmuch successful decades."

"The 1 constituent holding everything backmost is truly connected the outer autobus side. That is what is slowing everything down – much truthful than launch, much truthful than caller ideas," Cinnamon said.

Apex has truthful acold raised $7.75 cardinal successful a circular led by Andreessen Horowitz, alongside different task investors including XYZ, J2, Lux Capital and Village Global.

Cinnamon antecedently founded Superlabs, sold to Zynga successful 2015, and Synapse Technology, sold to Palantir successful 2020. His spouse successful Apex, Benassi, earned his stripes astatine Elon Musk's SpaceX implicit 7 years, moving connected everything from rockets to engines and more.

They participate an progressively competitory abstraction subsector of outer autobus manufacturing, with the likes of York Space, which precocious reached a $1 cardinal valuation. But Cinnamon says the marketplace modular is inactive "handmade" spacecraft that instrumentality years to germinate from bid to plan to delivery.

"We're not designing a caller outer autobus each azygous time. We're offering options and we're going to accidental nary to definite customers that are not a acceptable – we're not going to customized design," Cinnamon said.

Apex is starting disconnected with its Aries outer bus, a 103-kilogram level that the institution says tin enactment a lawsuit payload up to 94 kilograms.

Cinnamon said Apex has already taken connected customers for 2023 and plans to standard its manufacturing to 5 outer buses successful 2024, past 20 successful 2025, and up to 100 by 2026.

"From chatting with customers, we are proceeding that radical who are trying to procure outer buses are having a precise hard clip doing it, wherever galore of the existing providers connected the marketplace are really turning them distant and saying they don't person accumulation slots for them," Cinnamon said.

Satellites are launching to abstraction astatine an unprecedented rate, with thousands coming to orbit annually. While Apex wants to nutrient outer buses astatine scale, Cinnamon emphasized that avoiding adding debris to orbit is "critically important."

"For each outer autobus that we merchantability – fixed the information that we're wide manufacturing arsenic portion of the cardinal plan of however we physique this – it has to travel with a benignant of de-orbit capability, and a pathway guardant to guarantee that it does not adhd to the abstraction junk problem," Cinnamon said.