Richard Branson is listing his space startup via Spac
Virgin Orbit aims to achieve a market valuation of 3.2 billion US dollars with its planned IPO on the Nasdaq. To this end, the company wants to work with Spac Nextgen Acquisition Corp. merge.
Virgin Orbit will go public on the New York Stock Exchange with the modern vehicle of the Spac (Special Purpose Acquisition Company). To this end, the company will merge with a company that is already listed on the stock exchange, namely Nextgen Acquisition Corp. This eliminates all conventional intermediate steps on the way to the stock exchange.
Contents
Nextgen reports success in pipe financing round
The Nextgen Acquisition Corp. is headed by former Goldman Sachs banker George Mattson and Greg Sum, a former executive of the Carlyle Group, and does not develop any economic activity unless we raise funds from investors. This is exactly what Nextgen has now done and, according to its own information, has raised $ 100 million through a so-called pipe financing round. Pipe stands for “Private Investment in Public Equity”, ie (well-known) private investments in listed companies.
The ailing aviation company Boeing, whose own space program does not really want to get going, also took part in this financing round. At the beginning of the month, the launch of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft, which the company had hoped would enable it to send manned NASA missions to the International Space Station, had to be postponed due to faulty valves. It wasn’t the first failure in this project.
Neither Virgin Orbit nor Boeing provide any information about the amount of the upcoming investment. Boeing has announced that the Chicago, Illinois-based company has long-standing relationships with the Virgin Group and sees the new investment as “a strategic move.” The market for satellite launches will grow in importance and Virgin Orbit has the skills to assert itself in it, a spokeswoman told the company Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
Satellite launches have to become cheaper, Virgin sees itself well positioned
Virgin Orbit’s proposed public listing comes at an opportune time. With competition becoming more widespread, investors anticipate falling costs for access to space for businesses, tourism and scientific research. This is where Virgin Orbit can score because the southern California-based company uses a launch method that is unique to date. A converted jumbo jet releases a rocket at a great height, which then ignites and transports its payload from small satellites into orbit. This is said to be far cheaper than launching a rocket from the ground.
Branson’s Virgin Group owns 80 percent of Virgin Orbit. The remaining shares are held by Mubadala Investment, the sovereign wealth fund of the United Arab Emirates. In addition to Boeing, according to Virgin, the private equity fund AE Industrial Partners LP will also invest in the pipe.
Virgin Orbit has made two successful satellite launches this year. The company is one of the few providers of small satellites with flight-tested hardware.
Virgin boss Richard Branson had another special triumph in July: he flew to the edge of space with the Unity 22 capsule nine days before Jeff Bezos. Bezos was only able to follow suit, but – unlike Branson – actually crossed the so-called Kármán line at a height of 100 kilometers. This is widely considered to be the boundary between aerospace. Branson had “only” climbed to a height of 86 kilometers.
