Moonshots Capital Invests in the Future of Space
With a name like ours, it was only a matter of time: Moonshots Capital just made its first investment into a space company. Joining our Fund III portfolio is LA-based Outpost, the “SpaceX of Satellites.” The company will build the first-ever returnable satellite called “Ferry” which it will return to earth and precision land it for reuse in the same way that SpaceX first returned rockets from space.
Ben Zeitoun of Starburst Ventures, an existing investor in Outpost, first introduced my partner, Kelly Perdew, to Outpost. Ben thought of us because we led the Seed round of Red 6 and believed that our dual use investment and operational experiences plus our networks in the commercial and government markets would be valuable to the Outpost team. Thank you, Ben!
We were immediately impressed by Jason Dunn, Outpost’s visionary founder and CEO, who is a long-standing champion of sustainable development in space. His first company, Made in Space, made manufacturing away from Earth possible by developing 3D printers used at the International Space Station. This feat earned him and his co-founders a spot on Forbes’s prestigious “30 under 30” list in 2015. His co-founder and CTO at Outpost is Mike Vergalla, a paragliding pro and fellow aerospace engineer. When Mike told me that he had taken his own mother paragliding at nearly 10,000 feet, there was little doubt he knew a thing or two about paragliding. Mike has been building spacecraft since 2011, and leads the development of revolutionary technology that will enable Ferry’s secure and precise landing. Aaron Kemmer, Jason’s Made in Space Co-Founder, is the third Co-Founder and will join the board alongside Jason and myself.
Jason and Mike are technical founders to the core, both with great feats of engineering under their belts — and they have a leadership track record to match. Jason took the roles of CTO and President of Made in Space at various points in the company’s development, guiding it towards astronomical success that culminated in its acquisition by Redwire Space in 2020. Mike is an experienced Airbus executive and founder of Free Flight Research Lab, whose robotic free flight platforms served as the basis of Airbus’s Project Monark. Jason and Mike previously worked together at the commercial lunar delivery services company Moon Express, and they both hold Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in Aerospace Engineering. Our investment thesis at Moonshots Capital is: “we invest in extraordinary leadership” and that is exactly what we saw in Jason, Mike, and Aaron.
Joined by a brilliant team of specialists, the Outpost team is hard at work preparing their Ferry for its first mission. Their spacecraft will take off with multiple hosted payloads — separate modules that rely on the satellite for power supply, but each serves the needs of a different customer. Once its work is complete, the Ferry will safely return to Earth without polluting orbit, ready to be deployed in later missions. Outpost’s expertise has been recognized by longstanding industry giants, and their first mission is already over 60% subscribed.
Given the leadership and experience of the founding team matched with a $1T+ market opportunity, we moved quickly to lead the $7.1M round. Former Made in Space investors Starlight Ventures, Starbridge, and Shasta return to support Jason in his new endeavor, alongside Starburst Ventures, Kittyhawk Ventures, Gaingels, Capital Factory, Saturn Five, and astronaut and Planet Labs co-founder Chris Boshuizen. We are excited to work alongside these investors to help take Outpost to, in the words of Jason, “far beyond the moon.” 😊
Moonshots Capital is a veteran-founded venture capital firm that invests in early-stage startups with extraordinary leaders.
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