Stoke Space raises $1B before orbit to build a 15-ton Nova

Why it matters

Stoke's backers are financing a factory, launch site and second rocket before its first orbital flight. The $1B round turns full reuse from an engineering thesis into a capital-intensive execution test.

Andy Lapsa and Tom Feldman have raised an initial $1 billion Series E for Stoke Space, giving the former Blue Origin propulsion engineers fresh capital to attempt Nova Pathfinder's first orbital flight and begin work on a vehicle designed to carry five times as much payload. The financing, announced by Stoke and reported by TechCrunch on September 8, was co-led by Point72 Ventures and Spark Capital. General Innovation, Glade Brook Capital, US Innovation Technology, Washington Harbour Partners, Woven Capital and Y Combinator also participated.

Stoke described the transaction as an "initial closing," language that leaves room for the final amount to move. Stoke says the Series E brings its total capital raised to $2.3 billion. The round follows a Series D announced at $510 million in October 2025 and expanded to $860 million in February 2026.

"This round is really to scale," Lapsa told TechCrunch. Stoke plans to spend the money on manufacturing, launch and recovery infrastructure, higher flight frequency and development of Nova Block 2, a larger rocket aimed at a different class of payload than Pathfinder. That is a large expansion of the plan for two founders who started Stoke in 2019 after leaving Blue Origin and initially worked on the idea from Feldman's basement.

Two engine builders started with the second stage

Lapsa worked on Blue Origin's BE-4 engine before directing the BE-3 and BE-3U programs. Feldman, a Purdue-trained aerospace engineer who had also spent time at SpaceX, worked on propulsion at Blue Origin. Their experience shaped Stoke's architecture: instead of treating upper-stage recovery as an eventual modification, Lapsa and Feldman designed around it from the beginning.

In Lapsa's account of Stoke's founding, the pair surveyed roughly 150 rocket startups and concluded that none offered what they considered a credible route to rapid reuse of the entire launch vehicle. "Somebody had to do it, so why not us?" Lapsa wrote. Their basic argument is economic: discarding an upper stage after every mission limits launch frequency, keeps replacement manufacturing in the cost base and introduces newly built hardware on each flight.

That thesis puts Stoke against the hardest unfinished problem in commercial launch. SpaceX routinely recovers Falcon 9's first-stage boosters, while its Starship program is pursuing recovery of both stages. Stoke is also designing Pathfinder's fairing, first stage and payload-carrying second stage for reuse. No orbital operator has yet demonstrated that complete architecture in regular service.

Stoke's answer to upper-stage reentry centers on an actively cooled metallic heat shield. Super-cooled liquid hydrogen flows through the shield to absorb heat as the second stage returns through the atmosphere. Lapsa told TechCrunch that Stoke has tested the approach extensively on the ground and plans to carry extra coolant during early flights, giving engineers room to overcool the surface while flight data replaces modeling assumptions.

Pathfinder has to get there first

The immediate test is Nova Pathfinder, which Stoke is targeting for an early 2027 orbital debut. Its first stage uses seven methane-and-oxygen Zenith engines. The hydrogen-and-oxygen upper stage uses Stoke's Andromeda engine alongside the active heat shield. Multiple Pathfinder vehicles are in production, according to Lapsa, and Stoke has sold launch contracts for the vehicle. GeekWire reported that the first mission is expected to carry a spacecraft for asteroid-mining developer AstroForge.

The payload figures require some care. Stoke's Pathfinder page lists 2,500 kilograms to low Earth orbit. Lapsa told TechCrunch and GeekWire that Pathfinder can carry three metric tons. Those numbers may reflect different configurations, but Stoke's public materials do not place them on the same basis.

An early 2027 launch would arrive later than Stoke once planned. When Stoke raised its Series B in October 2023, it was aiming to reach orbit in 2025. Rocket schedules move, particularly before a first flight, and Stoke still has integrated ground tests ahead. Lapsa said the next major step is to bring the completed stages and Cape Canaveral launch systems together for static-fire testing and rehearsals.

The funding therefore arrives before Stoke has completed the milestone that matters most: reaching orbit. Investors are underwriting the manufacturing system, launch site and second vehicle while Pathfinder remains in qualification and production. Stoke's progress has been enough to support increasingly large rounds, but the economics of full reuse cannot be demonstrated until the hardware flies, returns and flies again.

Block 2 turns the technical bet into a capacity bet

Nova Block 2 is targeted for 2029 and is designed to carry 15 metric tons to low Earth orbit inside a five-meter fairing. Stoke says Block 2 will use the same basic engines and heat-shield approach as Pathfinder at a larger scale.

The larger vehicle explains why Stoke raised again so soon after expanding the Series D. Pathfinder can prove the architecture and start serving customers, but Block 2 gives Lapsa and Feldman a route into larger commercial, civil and defense missions. Stoke is expanding its Moses Lake test footprint so Pathfinder and Block 2 work can proceed in parallel, according to GeekWire.

That parallel development increases the amount of hardware, infrastructure and technical risk Stoke must manage before producing launch revenue at scale. It also reflects the founders' original conviction. Lapsa and Feldman did not form Stoke to build another expendable rocket and retrofit recovery later. Seven years in, investors have committed $2.3 billion to see whether two propulsion engineers can turn the reusable upper stage into a production system.