Flush with demand for its standardized spacecraft buses and seeking to speed production, Apex on Tuesday said it has raised $200 million in a Series C round that will be put toward designing and developing more subsystems and components in-house, and holding on to more inventory of components and finished products, the startup said on Tuesday.
Bringing more parts manufacturing in-house helps solve supply chain delays, speed overall production, reduce costs, and improve quality and reliability, Ian Cinnamon, founder and CEO of Apex, told Defense Daily on Monday before the announcement.
Laying the foundation to be more vertically integrated is expensive and so the new funding round helps with the necessary investment in related research and development, Cinnamon said. He declined to disclose specific parts Apex will make on its own, saying these are in areas where the supply chain is “limited.”
“It lets us kind of control our own destiny, to some degree, a lot more,” Cinnamon said.
Building up inventory of parts will also help accelerate production and having completed spacecraft available will let Apex deliver product faster, Cinnamon said. Current production is lagging demand, which has outpaced expectations, he said.
Having more assets on hand will help the Defense Department meet its need for tactical responsive space capabilities, in particular for the emerging Golden Dome program if it accelerates demand for more assets in space, Cinnamon said.
Apex is currently producing for customers its smallest spacecraft, Aries, which comes in two variants, one for low-Earth orbit and the other for geosynchronous orbit. Apex last March launched its own demonstrator Aries spacecraft that includes payloads provided by Anduril Industries, Booz Allen Hamilton [BAH], and others, and built three for customers in the fourth quarter of 2024, and is delivering even more for customers now, Cinnamon said.
The company is also building its first Nova spacecraft bus, which can carry up to 500 kilograms of payload, more than three times Aries. The first Nova flight, which will also be a test platform for Apex that includes mission partners, is expected in 2026. Nova already has customers.
“Multiple dozens of major defense primes picked Nova as their platform for different government missions that they are actively bidding on today,” Cinnamon said.
Apex plans to ramp up production of Nova in 2026.
Ongoing product sales are generating revenue, allowing Apex to sustain operations without the Series C raise, Cinnamon said. The new funding round opens the door to the move to become more vertically integrated and build inventory, he said.
Apex is also developing Comet, a satellite bus with a payload capacity greater than 500 kilograms. Production of Comet is two years away, he said.
Apex is producing its satellites at its 50,000-square-foot Factory One complex in Los Angeles. Factory One will support production of about a dozen satellite buses per month.
Apex has about 150 employees and expects to have 250 by the end of 2025, Cinnamon said. The company has raised more than $300 million through different seed rounds.
The Series C round was led by Point72 Ventures, and co-led by 8VC, alongside existing investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, and new investors Washington Harbour Partners and StepStone Group.