Isar Aerospace closes $17 Million Series A Funding Round

Munich, 10 Dec 2019 - European space company Isar Aerospace has closed a 17-million-dollar Series A investment round led by Earlybird and Airbus Ventures to develop low-cost launch vehicles dedicated to deploying and resupplying satellite constellations.

Existing investors Vito Ventures and UVC Partners participated in the round alongside Bulent Altan who served 12 years at SpaceX including Vice President positions as well as Christian Angermayer’s Apeiron Investment Group.

Isar Aerospace was founded in 2018 by Daniel Metzler, Josef Fleischmann and Markus Brandl, all of them studied at the Technical University of Munich and have a background in Aerospace Engineering. The company is leveraging advanced manufacturing to enable high performance yet low cost access to space, serving small and medium satellite manufacturers who drive innovation and digitization with data from space. “Space is becoming the new internet and its commercialization is in full swing,” said Daniel Metzler, CEO of Isar Aerospace. “This funding round enables us to progress substantially in our development of sustainable, environmentally-friendly launch vehicles and further deliver on our vision to make space access affordable for everyone.”

Hendrik Brandis, partner at Earlybird comments: “There is a new spirit of optimism in aerospace. We see the New Space segment as a business of the future around rockets and satellites. Isar Aerospace convinced us in particular with its professional, motivated and highly talented team. This is our first investment in this field, and we are proud to support Isar Aerospace as their Series A lead investor and look forward to accompanying them on their journey as investors and supporters.”

Over the past year, Isar Aerospace has been developing its Spectrum rocket at unmatched speed. The development is fully on track for first launch in late 2021 while key milestones such as propulsion system hotfire testing and agreements for launch site access have been achieved. “At Airbus Ventures we’re proud to add Isar Aerospace to our global portfolio of innovative launch systems,” remarks Airbus Ventures Financial Officer and EMEA team member Claas Carsten Kohl. Mathieu Costes, Airbus Ventures Partner adds “We’re pleased to entrust Daniel and his outstanding team, bringing impressive new technologies and approaches to the challenges of Low Earth Orbit, to represent our first deal in Germany. Together with our investment round co-leader Earlybird and under the continuing guidance of Bulent Altan we’re pleased to help draw together the ecosystems of new space excellence in both Germany and in the wider Airbus universe.”

The Isar Aerospace launch manifest is also picking up momentum with governmental and commercial customers including a Memorandum of Understanding with Airbus Defence and Space for multiple satellite constellations launches.

“Since the seed round where I participated as well, I was able to watch Isar Aerospace’s progress closely and I have to say that they have made impressive progress in their quest of building a cost effective medium sized launcher and differentiating themselves in this ever growing launcher market by targeting the right segment with solid engineering. As such this investment decision was an easy one to make,” says Bulent Altan.

Earlybird is a venture capital investor focused on European technology companies. Founded in 1997, Earlybird invests in all growth and development phases of a company. Amongst the most experienced venture investors in Europe, Earlybird offers its portfolio companies not only financial resources, but also strategic and operational focuses in digital technologies in Eastern and Western Europe as well as health technologies. With over EUR 1 billion under management, seven IPOs and 24 trade sales, Earlybird is one of the most successful venture capital firms in Europe.

For further information: www.earlybird.com

Airbus Ventures is a venture capital firm proudly inheriting the Adaptive Innovation, Systems Thinking, and International Mindset that distinguish our mothership Airbus, an aerospace upstart since its own beginnings. Building on this heritage we always aim to deeply support our portfolio companies, so that once invested, we can better understand, team and promote our portfolio Founders’ businesses to the Airbus worldwide network of partnering opportunities. We invest in early- and increasingly, in growth- stage companies, acting as lead investors where appropriate, recognising that new and fast-accelerating technologies reshaping aerospace now require newly inspired, ever-curious innovators and entrepreneurs untiring in their pursuit of excellence, from domains often well outside the traditional industry. We actively and successfully team our portfolio companies to help accelerate each other’s businesses, all the while strengthening our knowledge of the gaps in the system so that looking ahead we can sharpen our hunt for system plays.

Find us at www.airbusventures.vc

Isar Aerospace, based in Ottobrunn/Munich, develops and builds launch vehicles for transporting small and medium-sized satellites as well as satellite constellations into the Earth’s orbit. The company was founded in 2018 by Daniel Metzler, Josef Fleischmann and Markus Brandl. Since then, it has grown to about 100 employees with many years of hands-on rocket knowhow as well as experience at Intel, Apple, Panasonic, Airbus and SpaceX. The company is financed with more than 15 million euros by Airbus Ventures, Apeiron, Bulent Altan, Earlybird Venture Capital, Vito Ventures, UVC and Andreas Kupke.

Find more information under: www.isaraerospace.com

Tina Schmitt

E tina.schmitt@isaraerospace.com