Australian Retirement Trust has backed Gilmour Space Technologies, extending the startup’s $217 million Series E which valued it at over $1 billion.
Australian Retirement Trust has become the latest superannuation fund to back Gilmour Space Technologies, with the startup revealing it has drummed up a fresh $14.2 million in an extension of its Series E.
Gilmour Space Technologies co-founder Adam Gilmour told Forbes Australia that SpaceX’s impending IPO has the market very excited about space tech, an opportunity he intends to further capitalise on this year.
“You don’t want to be getting good milestones in a very lousy market, you’ve got to take advantage of [a hot] market,” Gilmour said. “In fact we are going to do that. We’re going to do another launch and we’re going to go back into the market and raise again.”
Gilmour is aiming for a launch in Q3, though he noted that is pending permitting from the Australian Space Agency – something that’s caused delays in the past.
The $14.2 million from ART brings Gilmour Space Technologies’ Series E funding to $231.2 million. The initial $217 million round was led by the National Reconstruction Fund and Hostplus. Gilmour stated the Series E’s original goal was $150 million, but after that was quickly hit the company lifted the cap to $260 million.
When asked if the post-launch fundraise would be another extension or a fresh (bigger) round, he answered: “I don’t know what we’ll call it, it could be a Series F.”
How much Gilmour is able to raise will depend on how well launch number two goes. Gilmour Space Technologies’ first attempt saw its Eris rocket take flight for 14 seconds. SpaceX famously succeeded in getting a rocket to orbit on its fourth try. Gilmour expects his company will take a similar path.
“There’s more pressure to do better, but we also have learned a lot and so we feel we can do better,” Gilmour said about the next launch attempt. “We’ve got money for four years so I’m not totally stressing. That gives us some peace of mind to say ‘do it right, do it properly, learn as much as you can.'”
“We’re really shooting to get to orbit on the third or the fourth launch.”
Frothy but real
ART is the latest of several superannuation funds to invest in Gilmour Space Technologies, with Hostplus, Future Fund, Funds SA, Hesta, NGS Super and Brighter Super already on the startup’s cap table.
Gilmour says he takes the responsibility of that backing seriously. But if the company does prove able to deliver satellites into orbit via its own rockets, the $1 billion-plus valuation these funds bought in at will look cheap indeed.
SpaceX has been the talk of capital markets over the past week as Elon Musk announced his intention to IPO the company at a valuation of up to US$1.75 trillion. It is easy to dismiss that figure, a 93-times multiple of sales, as financial showmanship from Musk. But investors have been dazzled by the sector for months. Rocket Lab’s stock is up 240% over the past six months, giving it a valuation of US$82 billion – a full 136-times multiple of its revenue.
Gilmour says there is obviously froth in the market, but that Wall Street is beginning to understand part of a space tech company’s value comes from the barrier to entry. A satellite company that decides it wants to control its launch operations would need 10 years to build its own rockets, Gilmour said.
“That’s one of the reasons why SpaceX is going to get a massive valuation, because people are understanding they’ve got a good moat behind them… and even the people that can compete against SpaceX, there’s a big moat behind them as well. There’s a big target market and not a lot of players that can play.”
Gilmour’s goal is to complement SpaceX’s offerings. He compares rocketry to the aviation industry: If SpaceX is dominating the market for A380 flights between capital cities, Gilmour Space Technologies will be the proverbial 737 serving shorter routes. His company will cater to those who don’t have a big enough payload to fill an A380, and who want to put them in places uneconomical for SpaceX to fly.
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