Prime Movers Leads Series A for Venus Aerospace

Venus Aerospace, a startup developing a Mach 9 hypersonic aircraft, has closed a $20 million Series A funding round led by Prime Movers Lab.

Houston-headquartered Venus Aerospace is building a zero-carbon emission spaceplane that will enable one-hour global travel. One year after closing its $3 million seed round, the company will use this new round of funding to mature its three main technologies: a NextGen Rocket Engine, innovative aircraft shape and leading-edge cooling, which allows the spaceplane to take off from existing spaceports, using existing infrastructure.

“We are excited to continue our partnership with Prime Movers Lab and our other great investors,” said Sassie Duggleby, CEO and co-founder. “In the past year, with our initial funding, we have scaled from 3 people to 40. These are the world’s best rocket scientists, engineers, and operators. With this funding, we will continue to push forward toward our next technical milestones, hire great people, and scale our organization. We are excited to continue engineering the future of high-speed aviation.”

With this funding, Venus has now raised $33 million in total funding, including $1 million of non-dilutive government funding. Other contributing investors in this round, all of whom previously invested in Venus, include Draper Associates, Boost, Saturn 5, Seraph Group, Cantos, The Helm, and Tamarack Global.

Over the last year, Venus secured government contracts and scaled fast. Venus designed and built its tech demonstration engine, executed key experiments at hypersonic wind tunnels and propulsion test facilities throughout the United States, and started a ground test campaign at Spaceport Houston.

“These recent advances in technology finally enable a spaceplane, a vehicle long imagined, but only now possible,” said Andrew Duggleby, CTO and co-founder. “We will use this round of funding to get into flight testing and engine testing at Spaceport Houston. Bringing this technology forward into systems, drones and ultimately spaceplanes, it will take both new space veterans and bright new minds to solve. We’ve gone from impossible to hard, and this investment will allow us to knock down the next few steps.”

“The United States is in the middle of a global race for hypersonic technology, and the breakthroughs being developed by Sassie, Andrew and their team have numerous civilian and defense applications,” said Brandon Simmons, a general partner at Prime Movers Lab. “Venus hit critical engine tests, vehicle design, and growth milestones that make me tremendously excited about the future of American hypersonic flight.”

Jackson, Wyoming-based Prime Movers Lab invests in breakthrough scientific startups founded by Prime Movers, the inventors who transform billions of lives. Sectors of interest include energy, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, agriculture and human augmentation. The firm is currently invested in in-space transportation, industrial solar heat, ag tech, brain upgrades, nanostructured materials, wafer slicing, prosthetics, 3D printing, mobility, longevity and artificial intelligence.