Outlier Space has raised an unusually large $10.5 million pre-seed round to build a satellite designed to help companies manufacture pharmaceuticals, silicon and other advanced materials in microgravity.
Space is becoming a new frontier of advanced manufacturing thanks to the wonders of microgravity. That may sound like sci-fi, but antipodean investors are betting it will soon be reality.
Outlier Space, which creates satellites that allow drugs, silicon and biotech to be developed in-orbit, has raised $10.5 million in an unusually large pre-seed round led by New Zealand VC GD1 and with participation from Australian VCs Airtree, Side Stage Ventures and Investible.
“We’re providing an anti-gravity chamber for customers,” founder Jamie France said to Forbes Australia. “They are the scientists who have figured out that they would really like to get away from gravity to do a process… we basically handle all of the space logistics around accessing that environment.”
Outlier will use the funding to engineer its first satellite. The idea is that its customers will put materials in that satellite, and it will then be launched into space where it will stay for weeks or months. Outlier also handles the retrieval piece, which essentially means its satellites have to be designed to not burn up on re-entering the atmosphere.
Microgravity environments are thought to open new possibilities for a variety of advanced manufacturing as materials form in more controlled physical environments. Microgravity can also produce larger, more consistent crystals, which may benefit pharmaceutical development and semiconductor manufacturing. It can also change how materials form by altering the way liquids solidify in space.
Outlier, which has operated in stealth over the last 18 months, is not the first to this frontier. Californian startup Varda Industries is building satellites for microgravitational pharmaceutical development, and last year raised US$187 million. Meanwhile British startup Space Forge is working to manufacture silicon in orbit, and has backing from NATO Innovation Fund to do it.
The difference is that these companies are specialising in the particular industries of pharmaceuticals and semiconductor materials. By contrast, Outlier develops the “anti-gravity chambers” for use by a range of customers.
France spent nearly 10 years at New Zealand-founded Rocket Lab, finishing up there as a global director, before a stint as head of manufacturing at Fleet Space Technologies. Other investors in the round include Nova Threshold and Icehouse Ventures.
“For most of history, everything humanity has ever built has been made under one gravity. In-space manufacturing quietly upends that – in microgravity you can grow crystals, fibres and compounds with properties that are simply impossible to replicate on Earth,” said Airtree principal investor Raaj Rayat.
“The thing holding it back as a category has never been demand; it’s been cheap, repeatable access to space.”
Outlier’s raise is notable not just because of how futuristic it sounds. It is the latest example of investors favouring hardware companies with defensible competitive advantages over software businesses, amid growing concern that AI could erode many traditional SaaS moats. Airtree’s presence on the cap table is itself significant: the VC has historically focused on fast-growing software companies.
The raise also underlines the findings of Cut Through Venture’s Australian Startup Funding Report for Q2, released last week, that found capital raises are getting larger but dealflow is getting smaller. The three months to June 30 saw the fewest early-stage bets made since the VC started keeping track in 2020, but the mean pre-seed round size of $1.3 million was at its highest ever.
That stat also highlights how large Outlier’s $10.5 million pre-seed raise is.
“We’re aiming to be in space in mid-2028,” France said. “I’m expecting that we will raise again before then.”
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