Rocket Lab's new, larger, crew-capable Neutron Rocket, scheduled for its first launch in 2024. Video / Rocket Lab
With more than 6000 Kiwi investors crowding the launchpad, Rocket Lab has revealed the date for its listing on the Nasdaq at a US$4.1 billion ($6b) valuation: August 25.
Founder, chief executive and one-time Fisher & Paykel Appliances apprentice Peter Beck will be ringing the bell for the US exchange at 9.30am next Wednesday (1.30am Thursday NZT). Because of Delta border closures, it will be a virtual ceremony.
Its Nasdaq debut - essentially a reverse-listing through a merger with a spac (special acquisition corporation) called Vector - will raise around US$777m for the Kiwi-American company, part of which is earmarked for the development of its much larger, crew-capable Neutron rocket.
Beck has the option to sell US$30m worth of shares as the transaction goes through, but will still be left with at least 13 per cent of the company worth around US$533m ($770m).
Beck told the Herald that thanks to shares given to "high performers" as a bonus, more than 100 past and present Rocket Lab staff will become millionaires if the listing goes to plan, while more than 180 will hold stock worth more than $500,000 (the company has around 600 staff in total; around two-thirds in NZ).
More broadly, more than 6000 Kiwi investors have piled on for launch by investing around $11m in Vector through platforms including Sharesies and Hatch.
Direct investors in Rocket Lab, who could be in for a payday next week, include ACC's investment arm and Sir Stephen Tindall's K1W1 fund (which both have stakes some under the 5 per cent disclosure threshold) and early backer Mark Rocket.
ACC participated in a US240m raise in 2018 when Rocket Lab had a private equity valuation of $US1b. Sir Stephen and Rocket have been onboard since the beginning.
Other investors include US defence and aerospace giant Lockheed Martin (sub-5 per cent), the Australian Government's Future Fund (10 per cent) and Vector founder Alex Slusky, plus a clutch of Silicon Valley venture capital firms including Khosla Ventures (the largest single investor with a 28 per cent stake), Bessemer Venture Partners (20 per cent) and DCVC.
Rocket Lab, a loss-making, sub-US$100m revenue company today, projects a US$505m operating profit on US$1.57b turnover by 2027 - with big leaps after its Neutron (which will have a payload capacity of up to 8 tonne) launches in 2024, all going to plan.
The company has announced a string of missions in the build-up to its listing, including efforts that will help space junk collecting and space-factory startups during their early phases, as well as announcing that its lunar mission for Nasa later this year (which will see a Rocket Lab "Photon" spacecraft ferry a Nasa satellite into orbit around the Moon) will now launch from Mahia rather than Rocket Lab's new Launch Complex 2 in Virginia, within Nasa's Wallops Island facility (which is still awaiting final sign-off from the US space agency).
An artist impression of a Rocket Lab Photon ferrying a Nasa's Capstone satellite inot lunar orbit. The launch scheduled for later this year, supports the US space agency's Artemis mission, which aims to land the first woman and first person of colour on the Moon in 2023. Image / Supplied
A privately-funded mission to Venus in 2023 and a Nasa contract to design and build two Photons to place into orbit around Mars in 2024 are also in Rocket Lab's pipeline.
While still privately-held, Rocket Lab has been loath to put a dollar-value on most of the contracts, but it has said its lunar launch for Nasa is worth US$9.95m ($14m) - a keen price as the company positions itself as the Kiwi-ingenuity, cost-competitive option against Elon Musk's SpaceX and efforts backed by Sir Richard Branson and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Rocket Lab's most recent mission was its July 29 launch from Mahia - a satellite for the US Air Force's new Space Force unit (reanimating debate over the company's US military-heavy schedule; Beck says his company will only launch research, not military-operational hardware, and notes many defence-developed technologies we use every day - from GPS to weather monitoring systems to the internet - have had positive benefits).
Following an 11-month interplanetary cruise, the twin Photons - named Blue and Gold - will orbit the Red Planet. Using their dual viewpoint, they will then explore how the solar wind strips the atmosphere away from Mars, allowing a better understanding of how its climate has changed over time. Image / Artist impression
No date has been set for its next launch as New Zealand's level 4 lockdown continues.
"Our next launch window hasn't been confirmed yet, but we are working toward launches in the coming weeks," comms director Morgan Bailey says.
"Our teams are working efficiently from home for now. We have previously been able to carry out most operations in level 3 and we're currently assessing what the different alert levels will mean for launch activity."
