Stoke Space adds $350M to funding round as it gets ready for the first launch of its reusable rocket

Kent, Wash.-based Stoke Space Technologies says it has added another $350 million to its previously announced Series D financing round, bringing the amount raised in the round to $860 million.

The fresh funding will go toward completing activation of the company’s Florida launch complex and expanding production capacity for its fully reusable Nova launch vehicle. Additional capital will be used to accelerate future elements on Stoke’s product road map.

Terms of the round were not disclosed. With the extension of the Series D round, Stoke has raised $1.34 billion to date.

The medium-lift Nova rocket is currently under development. First liftoff from Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is expected sometime this year.

“We’re extremely grateful for our investors’ continued support,” Andy Lapsa, Stoke’s co-founder and CEO, said today in a news release. “We’re executing with urgency to bring Nova to market and deliver for our customers. It’s a special vehicle, and there’s more in the pipeline — we look forward to sharing those developments as they mature.”

Nova’s first-stage booster is designed to fly itself back to a landing pad, following a procedure similar to that used by SpaceX for its Falcon 9 rocket. The second stage would use an actively cooled heatshield to ease its descent through the atmosphere, and then touch down on its own set of landing legs.

While SpaceX and Blue Origin are focusing on heavy-lift rockets such as Starship and New Glenn, Stoke is targeting the medium-lift launch market. Even though Stoke Space hasn’t yet launched a rocket to orbit, it was added to the U.S. Space Force’s list of providers for national security launches last year.