Sierra Space, valued at $5.3 billion, eyes IPO to 'accelerate the new space economy'

Sierra Space, one of the space industry’s most valuable private companies, plans to go public within the next 18 months, according to its CEO.

Speaking to Yahoo Finance, Tom Vice said the company is looking to raise additional capital to "provide optionality" for its growing aerospace business.

“We spent the last three years de-risking our technology stack, de-risking our capital structure, de-risking our business plan,” Vice said. “But now we look at the public markets over the next 12, 18 months, and we'll make a decision on what the right timing for us is.”

Valued at $5.3 billion in its most recent funding round, the Colorado-based company was spun out of defense contractor Sierra Nevada Corporation in 2021. Since then, the firm has placed its bets on building out the growing space economy, from developing rocket propulsion technology to a commercial space station with Blue Origin.

Its ambitions have fueled the development of its cargo space plane, the Dream Chaser, set to have its inaugural mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in the second half of this year.

Built to land on any commercial runway, the plane will lower the barrier to entry into low-earth orbit and open up business opportunities, Vice said.

“Since the 1960s, every science experiment or human being that's come back to earth from space, even today, is still landing in a capsule in the ocean,” he said. “We think changing and revolutionizing the way that we bring things back from space, both humans and cargo, and landing [the spacecraft] back at a commercial runway will completely accelerate the new space economy.”

The space economy is forecast to reach $1.8 trillion by 2035, according to a new report published by the World Economic Forum. Much of that growth is expected to be built on communications satellites and launch vehicles, but space is expected to take an increasingly important role in other industries as well, including biotech, consumer goods, and supply chain and transportation.

“We believe that the next big breakthrough products in oncology, longevity, and industrialized components like glass will be produced in low Earth orbit," Vice said, noting that many of those opportunities are likely to come from the development of commercial space stations to replace the decades-old ISS.

Sierra Space has partnered with Blue Origin to build out the Orbital Reef, a commercially owned and operated space station, though recent reports have hinted at tension between the corporate partners.

"We're transitioning from decades of government-run space stations with just a handful of government-trained astronauts to the full commercialization of low Earth orbit,” Vice said. “We think that's going to create, we believe, probably the most profound industrial revolution and grow that space economy well over a trillion dollars by 2040.”

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