Interlune sold a $5M SAFE to one investor for its Moon helium bet
Rob Meyerson's Interlune recorded the sale on August 31st, after reporting $23M in venture funding in July.
By Ryan Merket · Published
Primary source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Why it matters
Interlune's $5M SAFE gives Rob Meyerson more runway to prove that terrestrial helium-3 technology can bridge the long gap between customer commitments and lunar production.
Rob Meyerson's Interlune sold $5 million of Simple Agreements for Future Equity to a single investor on August 31st, according to a Form D filed with the SEC on September 15th. The financing puts another concentrated bet behind Meyerson's plan to supply scarce helium-3 from Earth first and the Moon later.
The filing lists the full $5 million as sold, with nothing remaining in the offering. Interlune used the SEC's Rule 506(b) exemption and paid no commissions or finders' fees. The filing identifies the instrument as SAFEs, which promise equity in a future financing without setting a share price in the current transaction.
One detail carries most of the intrigue: all $5 million came from one investor. The filing does not identify that investor or provide the SAFE's valuation cap, discount or conversion terms.
Meyerson signed the filing on September 14th as Interlune's CEO and president. The former Blue Origin president has spent years assembling a founding group with unusually direct experience in lunar science and commercial spaceflight, including former Blue Origin chief architect Gary Lai, Apollo 17 astronaut-geologist Harrison Schmitt, space lawyer and operator Indra Hornsby, and product chief James Antifaev.
A new filing after an earlier SAFE
The August financing follows a separate January 2026 Form D for a $5 million SAFE. That earlier filing reported $500,000 sold to six investors, with a first sale on January 13th.
Meyerson said at the time that the January SAFE would finance technical milestones ahead of Interlune's next priced round, according to Cosmic Log's reporting. The September filing carries a different SEC file number, describes itself as a new notice rather than an amendment, and records one investor purchasing the full $5 million. The documents do not establish whether the latest transaction replaced, extended or remained separate from the January offering.
Interlune said in July that it had raised $23 million in venture capital. Because the latest filing records its first sale on August 31st, the transaction occurred after that dated funding figure.
SAFEs let Interlune postpone the valuation negotiation until a later equity round. For the sole investor, that means the eventual ownership stake depends on terms that remain private. For Meyerson, it means $5 million of financing without having to price a lunar-resources venture before its central technical and economic assumptions have been demonstrated off Earth.
Meyerson's Earth-to-Moon bridge
Meyerson's interest in helium-3 dates to his work at NASA in the 1990s, he wrote in Interlune's origin story. He later recruited Lai to Blue Origin, where Lai led advanced studies and New Shepard development before flying aboard the vehicle in 2022.
Schmitt supplies the longer historical thread. He spent three days on the lunar surface during Apollo 17 as the only professional geologist to walk on the Moon and has advocated lunar helium-3 development for decades. Interlune's name comes from "Interlune-One," the title of a 1994 lunar-resource proposal submitted to NASA by the University of Wisconsin's Fusion Technology Institute.
Meyerson's founding thesis is that cheaper launches and a growing base of commercial landers, rovers and lunar power systems have made resource extraction economically plausible. "For the first time in history, harvesting natural resources from the Moon is technologically and economically feasible," he said when Interlune emerged from stealth in March 2024.
That launch included $18 million in seed capital. Seven Seven Six led the most recent $15 million portion, with Aurelia Foundry Fund, Gaingels, Liquid 2 Ventures, Shasta Ventures and University of Michigan alumni also participating. Seven Seven Six founding partner Katelin Holloway joined Interlune's board and is listed as a director in the new SEC filing.
Interlune has since developed an Earth-based bridge to its lunar plan. In July, Interlune said its Cold Capture system had separated 99% pure helium-3 from Grade A helium using cryogenic distillation. Interlune says the process can supplement terrestrial supply while validating separation technology intended for eventual lunar operations.
The distinction matters. A terrestrial process gives Interlune a nearer-term technical program while lunar prospecting, extraction and return infrastructure remain years away. It also lets Meyerson address customers whose helium-3 requirements arrive before Interlune's planned lunar harvesting operations in the 2030s.
Purchase commitments meet execution risk
Interlune says it has secured nearly $500 million in binding helium-3 purchase agreements. Bluefors has independently said it agreed to purchase up to 10,000 liters annually from 2028 through 2037. Maybell Quantum has agreed to annual deliveries from 2029 through 2035, while the Department of Energy Isotope Program agreed to buy three liters of lunar helium-3 by April 2029.
Those agreements provide evidence of customer interest, especially among quantum-computing suppliers that use helium-3 in dilution refrigerators. They remain forward purchase commitments tied to Interlune's ability to produce and deliver an isotope that it has not harvested from the Moon. The Form D declines to disclose Interlune's revenue range and provides no operating metrics.
Government work is financing part of the technical path. In May, Interlune announced a $6.9 million NASA SBIR Phase III contract to build a payload that will collect lunar regolith, extract volatile gases and measure their concentrations. Interlune expects the payload to be ready for a commercial robotic lander in 2028.
The single $5 million check arrives between the Cold Capture demonstration and that planned lunar payload. It gives Meyerson additional capital to move hardware through a period when Interlune must convert customer commitments and government-funded prototypes into measurable production. The investor has accepted that risk without requiring Interlune to set a public valuation first.