Oct 14, 2021   SOURCE: BusinessWire

Space Perspective Soars With $40 Million ‘Series A’ Funding Round, Led by Prime Movers Lab, to Expand Space Travel Program

Space Perspective, the Earth’s leading luxury spaceflight experience company, today announced a $40 million Series A financing round led by deep-technology VC firm Prime Movers Lab with additional participation from existing and new investors. The new injection of capital marks the first time a human SpaceBalloon company has raised this level of investment. To date, Space Perspective has raised a total of $48 million in funding, advancing the company to the phase of fulfilling commercial SpaceBalloon flights from late 2024 and beyond.

“This is an important milestone for Space Perspective, and we are thrilled to have secured this mission-critical support from Prime Movers Lab,” said co-CEO and Chief Technology Officer, Taber MacCallum. “Our successful, first test-flight in June, which lifted to the target altitude of 108,000 feet, signaled that all systems are ‘Go!’ for our sustainable approach to space tourism. Our brilliant engineers and safety experts have devised a fail-safe SpaceBalloon vehicle and propulsion system executed to the same exacting safety and performance standards befitting a NASA mission.”

“We are exhilarated by this significant investment by Prime Movers Lab and also deeply appreciative of new support from LightShed Ventures, the Explorer 1 Fund, and others,” said Space Perspective co-CEO and Chief Experience Officer Jane Poynter. “It’s a new day in space travel, and our investors are responding to a vocal and growing market of travelers seeking a safe portal for this ultimate journey.”

In addition to Prime Movers Lab, new investors include LightShed Ventures, a leading consumer and media VC firm; the Explorer 1 Fund, a commercial space VC firm founded by Jet Propulsion Laboratory fellow, Leon Alkalai; and Yamauchi no.10 Family Office, launched by the founding family of Nintendo Co.

Additional investors include entrepreneur, author and business strategist Tony Robbins; venture capital firms E2MC and SpaceFund, both experts in commercial space investments; Florida-based venture capital firm Kirenaga Partners; tech-VC firm Base Ventures; and 1517 Fund.

"Prime Movers Lab’s team of engineers, subject matter experts, and advisors – who have decades of experience working for NASA, national research laboratories, and leading aerospace companies – conducted technical due diligence on Space Perspective’s team and patented SpaceBalloon technology, and we firmly believe that Space Perspective is the best-positioned company to democratize space tourism,” said Prime Movers Lab Partner and Space Perspective Board Member Anton Brevde. “It’s clear that there is massive consumer demand to explore this final frontier, and we believe Space Perspective will provide the most accessible way for travelers to experience space.”

Anton Brevde and Brandon Simmons of Prime Movers Lab serve on the Space Perspective Board of Directors. Additional Board members include Dr. Alan Eustace, former Google Executive and world record holder for the highest flight under a SpaceBalloon, and founders Jane Poynter and Taber MacCallum. Board Observers include Brandon Ross of LightShed, while David Scalzo of Kirenaga is a company advisor.

“Space Perspective represents the next frontier of the experience economy,” said Brandon Ross, GP, LightShed Ventures. “The company makes space travel accessible to people of any age, and without any special physical training. The sky’s no longer the limit!”

The company’s first test flight safely completed its journey to 108,000 feet in June of 2021 from the Space Coast Spaceport, adjacent to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The uncrewed test flight utilized an unpressurized capsule.

Space Perspective, founded in 2019, was created to provide a transformative opportunity to view planet Earth from space. In 2024, Spaceship Neptune will fly eight passengers and a pilot to the edge of space and back in a climate-controlled, pressurized capsule propelled by a high-performance 300-foot diameter SpaceBalloon. The six-hour flight offers views of the curvature of the Earth against the blackness of space from an altitude of over 100,000 feet (20 miles/30 kilometers).

Space Perspective’s Spaceship Neptune’s flight path includes a gradual and gentle two-hour ascent at 12 MPH, rising to 100,000 feet (a suborbital climb, topping out above 99% of the Earth’s atmosphere). Gliding at apogee for up to two hours, the spaceship then makes a similarly gradual, two-hour descent to Earth before gently splashing down in the ocean, where a ship retrieves the passengers, the capsule, and the SpaceBalloon.

Commercial flights are targeted for late 2024, with the first year of seats completely reserved. Space Perspective is currently taking reservations for 2025 and beyond. Space Perspective’s human spaceflight launches are regulated by the FAA Office of Commercial Spaceflight.

About Space Perspective: Space Perspective is the world’s first luxury spaceflight company and developers of eco-friendly patented SpaceBalloon technology. It offers travelers access to exhilarating panoramas from suborbital space, 20 miles/30 kilometers above the Earth’s surface. A cylindrical, pressurized capsule offering 360-degree views, Spaceship Neptune is propelled to an apogee of 100,000 feet by a high-performance, recyclable SpaceBalloon. Based at Kennedy Space Center, Space Perspective was founded by Jane Poynter and Taber MacCallum, and their expert crew - who have been integral to all human SpaceBalloon™ flights for 50 years. MacCallum and Poynter -- dubbed “Masters of the stratosphere” by Bloomberg BusinessWeek -- were on the design team and spent two years inside Biosphere 2, a closed ecological system designed to advance possibilities for maintaining human life in outer space. MacCallum is former chairman and current Board Member of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. For more information, visit SpacePerspective.com. Follow Space Perspective for updates, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.