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Moon Express, which wants to open missions to the Moon in the next two years, says it raised $ 2.5 million in bridge funding and began a $ 20 million Series B round of financing, funded by a lead investor in the United States. $ 10 million.
The proceeds will go toward building facilities in Cape Canaveral, Florida, and developing the spacecraft for its lunar commercial flight program, the company said in a press release.
Since its inception in 2010, Moon Express has been working on a space transportation system called "FedEx for space". The company, whose Seattle-area entrepreneur, Naveen Jain, is the co-founder and executive chairman, was a competitor of the Google Lunar X Prize. Although the prize has been lost, Moon Express continues to work on a series of spacecraft for moon trips and other extraterrestrial destinations, supported by NASA's Lunar CATALYST program.
Moon Express co-founder and CEO Bob Richards announced the new funding for the World Summit of the Innovation Network in Chicago.
"We are at the dawn of an exciting new era of lunar exploration and development," said Richards. "We are excited by the new US Space Policy to return to the Moon in a sustainable way with trading partners, and we look forward to working with NASA and other space agencies to explore the eighth continent of the Earth. "
The Miami-based Minerva Capital group led the $ 2.5 million round of financing and supported the $ 20 million Series B rounds.
"Moon Express has a unique and well-thought-out business model that we believe is compelling," said Jocelyn Cortez-Young, managing partner and founder of Minerva. "We support visionary entrepreneurs and companies pursuing a transformative innovation towards a social good."
Moon Express is one of more than two dozen companies that have expressed interest in NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which aims to purchase rides for payloads on commercial lunar landers. Two companies based in the Seattle area, Blue Origin and Spaceflight Industries, are also on the list. NASA should select its first suppliers by the end of the year.
Moon Express's lunar journey is scheduled to begin in 2020. During the Google Lunar X Prize contest, the company entered into a launch agreement for Rocket Lab's Electron rocket, but the final decision on launch arrangements was not made. not announced yet.
Moon Express has a 72-acre campus at Cape Canaveral, located in former 17 and 18 launch complexes.
For years, the company has been involved in a long-term contractual dispute with Intuitive Machines. In January, a federal jury in Delaware paid $ 4.1 million in cash and equity to Intuitive Machines, but the case is still ongoing.
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