Stoke Space Mega-Round Shows How Launch Is Becoming a Defense Asset

Kent, Washington-based Stoke Space has raised $510 million in Series D funding to accelerate work on its fully reusable Nova launch system, one of the most ambitious efforts in the medium-lift launch market.

The round was led by Thomas Tull’s U.S. Innovative Technology Fund (USIT), with participation from Washington Harbour Partners, General Innovation Capital Partners, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Toyota Ventures, and others. The financing brings Stoke’s total capital raised to nearly $1 billion, alongside a $100 million debt facility led by Silicon Valley Bank.

According to co-founder and CEO Andy Lapsa, the new funding will support completion of the Nova rocket’s development and first orbital flights, expected to take place from Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station next year. Stoke will also expand production capacity and invest in infrastructure for high-frequency launch operations.

Founded in 2019 by former Blue Origin engineers Andy Lapsa and Tom Feldman, Stoke is developing a fully reusable medium-lift rocket capable of carrying 2 to 20 tons to orbit. The company’s core innovation lies in a liquid-cooled heat shield that enables second-stage reusability, a key technical challenge that has yet to be solved at scale by any launch provider.

If successful, Nova would join SpaceX’s Falcon and Blue Origin’s New Glenn as one of the few operational reusable orbital launch systems. Stoke has already secured a place on the U.S. Space Force’s National Security Space Launch (NSSL) roster and has a growing commercial manifest.

Stoke currently operates a 168,000-square-foot headquarters in Kent and a 75-acre test facility in Moses Lake, Washington. Its first Cape Canaveral flights will mark a return to Launch Complex 14, the historic site from which John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth in 1962.