British orbital launch services company Orbex is set to enter administration, the company has confirmed.
The Financial Times (FT) reported on Wednesday that the company’s collapse comes after unsuccessful attempts to raise additional funds and complete merger and acquisition opportunities. It names The Exploration Company as one such company that explored an acquisition of Orbex, but the deal fell through after the European firm failed to secure UK government funding.
It is said that the Exploration Company saw the takeover of Orbex as an opportunity to establish a base in the UK, securing the UK as a stakeholder alongside France and Germany, while securing ‘some jobs’ at Orbex.
Founded in 2016, Orbex was established to serve the small satellite industry and has served for the last decade as one of the UK’s leading private space companies. The first test launches of Orbex’s microlauncher Prime were due to take place later this year. Orbex is said to already have commercial launch commitments from several satellite customers for Prime, which Orbex describes as 'one of the most advanced, low-carbon microlaunchers in the world.'
Key to the company’s approach was the use of additive manufacturing to develop advanced engines. Orbex had installed a custom AMCM 3D printer, as well as an SLM 800 machine.
The company was valued at around 220 million USD after a 2022 fundraising, with the UK government among those to have provided financial support, said to be in the region of 26 million GBP. The FT reports that ‘years of delays in the development of its launcher’ left a ‘growing gap’ in the company’s finances. In recent weeks, Orbex management has been working to find sources of investment that could keep the company going. But CEO Phil Chambers informed Orbex’s 160 employees that it had failed to secure additional investment and administrators were being called in.
Orbex confirmed on Thursday that it has filed a notice of intention to appoint Administrators and will continue trading while all options for the future of the company are explored, including potential sale of all or parts of its business or assets. The company confirmed that: "The funding required for Orbex to remain a viable business was sought from a variety of public and private investors during its Series D funding round, which has ultimately failed. Several merger and acquisition opportunities have also been explored, with none resulting in a favourable outcome."
Chambers said: “Disappointing doesn’t come close to describing how we feel about this moment. We have been successfully developing a sustainable, world-class sovereign space launch capability for the UK and were on the cusp of our first test flights later this year.
“It is no secret that designing and building space rockets to enable a launch service is a capital-intensive, highly advanced process with a long development cycle that creates a ‘scale-up’ funding gap. Institutional support is crucial to bridge this gap, and we have worked tirelessly to try to find both funding or rescue solutions.
“What is most disappointing is that we have brought hundreds of skilled jobs to Scotland; we have been at the vanguard of the UK’s space ambitions; we have led the way in driving good news about the UK’s space sector. Yet all of this progress now risks being undone – and it is real people who will feel the consequences.”
