Stoke Space Raises $1 Billion to Build the Rocket That Comes Home

Stoke Space Technologies (“Stoke Space”) has completed the initial closing of a US$1 billion Series E round to fund the ongoing development of its fully reusable Nova Pathfinder and Nova Block 2 rockets.

Stoke Space is a U.S. rocket launch startup aiming to accomplish an unprecedented feat: build a fully reusable rocket. To date, no company has successfully created a rocket where both the booster stage and payload-carrying second stage are capable of returning to Earth so they can be efficiently and cheaply reused. Stoke Space’s mission is to be the first.

Competitors have struggled to identify the optimal materials for the heat-shield components that protect the rocket’s second stage, atmospheric re-entry, when it must withstand extreme heat. Stoke Space has instead developed and exhaustively tested a unique active cooling solution that is to be deployed on the first flight.

This innovation is particularly timely given the surge in global launch market demand, driven by companies expanding their satellite-dependent service offerings. Moreover, only a few U.S. companies are working on fully reusable orbital launch systems. Accordingly, this Series E round represents far more than an increase in the company’s valuation; full rocket reusability has the potential to lower the cost of reaching orbit by tens of millions of dollars relative to expendable rockets, enabling a broader range of satellite missions and advancing scientific knowledge.