In October 2021, The Exploration Company was a tiny team with a moonshot plan for a reusable space capsule. Today, it announced its $450M Series C, the largest ever raised by a European space company. And, the largest round secured by an EU-headquartered company led by a female founder and CEO.

The round is co-led by Bessemer Venture Partners, Atomico and the Scaleup Europe Fund, with Cherry among the existing backers continuing to invest,bringing TEC's total funding to around $680M.

We partnered with Hélène Huby and the TEC team at pre-seed in October 2021 and have invested in every round since. We wrote about why at the Series B, and the momentum in this company is off the charts: $2B+ in contracts and commitments won globally, public and private, including the European Space Agency (ESA) and a Space Act Agreement with NASA, a first for a European space startup. As well as adding over 550 employees across Europe, the US, and the UAE, a company that has kept its roots in Europe while executing on a global stage.

This capital will go to 2 machines.
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• Nyx, TEC's reusable cargo capsule, will fly a full-scale orbital demonstration that will dock with the International Space Station and return to Earth (structural test model below).
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and
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• Storm, Europe's first reusable high-thrust rocket engine, running liquid oxygen and biomethane through a full-flow staged combustion cycle. This lays the propulsion foundation for a future European heavy-lift launcher capable of carrying up to 40 tons to orbit in reusable configuration.

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The round comes amidst the best week in European space's commercial history. On Saturday night, a rocket built in Munich by Isar Aerospace lifted off from Andoya in Norway and became the first commercial orbital launch from continental Europe. Communications, navigation, science and security all run through orbit, and for decades Europe has rented its access to them. That is what is changing rapidly, an independent road to orbit now runs from European soil.

For Cherry, our conviction runs further than sovereignty. Space transportation is one of the few markets large enough to produce Europe's first trillion-dollar company, and TEC now has the contracts, the partners and the capital to compete for it. The next steps are fully in motion and the capability is being built here, now, and we are so proud to be backing Hélène while she builds it.