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I thought the Gravitics site was pretty cool. Question from someone with no knowledge of this industry. How are aerospace startups like Gravitics generally fun
by hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
I thought the Gravitics site was pretty cool.
Question from someone with no knowledge of this industry. How are aerospace startups like Gravitics generally funded? Is it a billionaire or two funding in the short term until it delivers products? Funding from other big aerospace companies like Lockheed Martin as a sort of "skunkworks" project company? VCs? Government DARPA-like funding?
I'm just curious how these big, super expensive hardware efforts get funded for years before they deliver any functional products.
- dr_orpheus 2y agoA lot of the time the path looks like this: 1. Initial VC funding for your cool idea to carry you to something (analysis, initial demo) you can feasibly sell to get to a more formal demonstration 2. Science and Technology government org funding for a demonstration (DARPA, SBIRS, SpaceWerx, NASA ventures, FFRDC lab, etc.) 3. Large government funding (NASA, Space Force, etc.) for full product delivery or buying enough data to keep funding further build-out
- dr_orpheus 2y agoYou can see some of that path on their website 2022: Announced $20m in VC funding, April 2024: SpaceWERX contract for $1.7M, June 2024: Starting to work agreements with NASA So they are currently on step 2