Good morning,
As billionaires like Jeff Bezos prepare to take a trip into space, the San Francisco-area rocket startup Astra Space is set to make its debut on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. But the company is sending small satellites, not people, into space.
“We are a commercial business,” Astra CFO Kelyn Brannon says. “We’re not going to Mars. Our spacecraft could deliver a special coffee to the Space Station or drop something off on the moon. We have that capability.”
Formed in 2016, Astra will become the first space company to trade on Nasdaq. Astra will begin trading today under the ticker ASTR and ASTRW for Astra warrants, with a valuation submitted to the SEC of approximately $2.1 billion.
The company didn’t go the traditional IPO route. Astra announced in February it would merge with Holicity, Inc., a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) backed by Craig McCaw, Bill Gates, and others. Holicity’s shareholders voted on Wednesday to approve the merger. Astra raised $500 million in cash proceeds, which includes $300 million of cash held in Holicity’s trust account, and a $200 million private investment in public equity led and managed by BlackRock. CEO Chris Kemp and Astra’s management team will lead the combined company.
Going public via a SPAC was “a very expeditious way to raise money,” Brannon says. “Space businesses are incredibly capital intensive,” she says. The funding helped to “accelerate our business plan by having the capital sitting on the balance sheet,” Brannon explains.
“All of a sudden as a young company, you don’t have funding risks anymore, which means now you get to focus on execution risks,” she says.
A former head of finance at Amazon.com, Brannon previously led Calix, Inc. And Arista Networks, Inc. Through the IPO process as CFO. After joining Astra in December 2020, she believed going public “was exactly the right thing to do.”
“I thought [Astra] wasn’t ready from an infrastructure perspective but was ready from a maturation of the business model,” Brannon says. Astra reached space for the first time December 15 with the launch of its Rocket 3.2 vehicle from Kodiak, Alaska. The rocket’s hardware and software performed well, so the technology was ready, she says.
Astra may build rockets, but it doesn’t sell rockets, Brannon says. It provides a space services platform in which its 40-foot-tall rocket can help customers to launch their satellites into orbit. Its services allow “nascent companies to come up with a concept, and get into space in months, not years,” she says.
In June, Astra acquired Apollo Fusion, an electric space-propulsion company in order to reach new destinations in space. The launching of small satellites has the potential to collect data and information to “make this a healthier Earth,” Brannon says. Astra has more than 50 launches under contract, “delivering customer payloads into low Earth orbit” in the summer of 2021, according to the company.
Why will Astra be attractive to investors? “The space economy is really a massive opportunity,” Brannon says. “And we love our potential to be a big part of it, and to help drive it, and to create long-term shareholder value.”
Next on Brannon’s agenda is focusing on the expansion of workspace in Astra’s factory, “so we can drive towards building a rocket a day,” she says.
See you tomorrow.
Sheryl Estrada
[email protected]
***
Nominate superstars for consideration for Coins2Day’s annual 40 under 40 ranking of the most influential young people in business. The deadline is July 19. Click here for more information.
Big deal
IronNet Cybersecurity released its 2021 Cybersecurity Impact Report evaluating topics including executive-level engagement in attack responses. A survey conducted by independent research firm Sapio asked 473 IT security decision makers in the U.S., U.K., and Singapore working in various industries their experiences. Respondents named some obstacles to information sharing.
Going deeper
The financial services and the health care industry are increasingly focused on digital strategy, according to a new report by Acorio, an NTT DATA company and ServiceNow consultancy for digital transformation. The third annual Insight & Vision Report found that, overall, 56% of respondents said their digital transformation initiatives started or increased in importance due to pandemic. However, 89% of respondents in financial services; 81% in health care; 75% in technology, internet and electronics; and 69% education said their company has strategic initiatives underway. The data is based on a survey of 492 professionals.
Leaderboard
Mike Buckley was named CFO at Shenandoah Growers, a grower and marketer of organic and sustainable culinary herbs in the U.S. Prior to joining the company, Buckley served in numerous business and financial executive roles including former SVP of business at Postmates.
Nee Chuan Teo was named CFO at BioDuro-Sundia, an Advent International portfolio company and drug discovery and development services organization. Prior to BioDuro-Sundia, Teo served as CFO for multiple companies in Greater China, such as Huazhu Group.
Scott Dussault was named CFO at Workhuman, a performance management platform. Dussault joins Workhuman with more than 20 years of operational and financial leadership experience. He was previously EVP and CFO at Demandware.
Overheard
“I learned that people don’t know as much as they think they know. But the biggest thing you learn is that the pandemic was bound to occur, and this isn’t the worst one that’s imaginable at all.”
—Berkshire Hathaway CEO and renowned investor Warren Buffett on how the world can lack preparation for a major crisis that's likely to occur, as told to CNBC.
