HYIMPULSE raises more than €50 million to chart another route to orbit

Six days after the ESA awarded nearly €544 million to three of its competitors, HYIMPULSE announced a Series A extension of more than €50 million. The round brings the German startup’s total funding, combining equity and public support, to more than €125 million. This is a significant sum, but still far below the resources secured by ISAR AEROSPACE or PLD SPACE. To compensate for this gap, HYIMPULSE is betting on a paraffin-based hybrid propulsion system, the commercialisation of its SR75 suborbital launch vehicle and military demand for hypersonic testing. Its engine has already flown. It must now demonstrate that this architecture can reach orbit and then be produced at an economically viable rate.

In less than a week, Europe’s launcher competition moved to a new scale. On 27 August, the European Space Agency committed €543.6 million to ISAR AEROSPACE, ROCKET FACTORY AUGSBURG and PLD SPACE. On 1 September, PLD SPACE added €108 million to its Series C, bringing the round to €288 million and its cumulative funding to €488 million. The following day, HYIMPULSE announced more than €50 million in new equity.

These transactions reveal less a sudden venture capital enthusiasm for rockets than a market reaching maturity. The first engines have been fired, demonstrators have lifted off and several European launch sites are ready to host them. The difficulties begin afterwards: building a complete launch vehicle, securing regulatory approvals, reaching orbit, repeating the flight and manufacturing enough vehicles to amortise the industrial infrastructure.

HYIMPULSE enters this race with a particular constraint. The German company was not among the five businesses pre-selected for the European Launcher Challenge in 2025 and therefore lacks the institutional safety net enjoyed by its main competitors.

Its promise is to reach orbit with a less complex and less expensive rocket that requires less capital to develop. HYIMPULSE also intends to generate revenue before SL1 makes its first orbital flight by selling scientific and military suborbital missions using SR75.

A Series A worth at least €65 million

The new equity round, worth more than €50 million, was co-led by JOIN CAPITAL and ACE CAPITAL PARTNERS. NORTH VENTURES, BW-CAPITAL, BAYERN KAPITAL and the German Aerospace Center, DLR, also joined the transaction, alongside existing shareholder CAMPUS FOUNDERS VENTURES.

The extension follows the €15 million in equity raised in October 2025, bringing the Series A to at least €65 million.

The other figures need to be considered separately. The €45 million package announced in 2025 combined €15 million in equity with €30 million in public funding. Similarly, the “more than €125 million” secured since the company was founded includes both equity and institutional support. It therefore represents neither the size of the Series A nor exclusively private venture capital.

HYIMPULSE has not disclosed its valuation, but the composition of the round nevertheless provides an indication of its strategy. JOIN CAPITAL invests in deeptech, space and dual-use technologies. ACE CAPITAL PARTNERS focuses on civil and military aerospace and defence companies. Around them, German regional capital and DLR strengthen the institutional foundations of a business originating from public research.

Founded in 2018 by Christian Schmierer, Mario Kobald, Konstantin Tomilin and Ulrich Fischer, HYIMPULSE emerged from research conducted at DLR’s Institute of Space Propulsion in Lampoldshausen. The research centre still describes the company as a privately funded spin-off.

Three competitors and almost €544 million in public contracts

ISAR AEROSPACE is due to receive €197.8 million under the European Launcher Challenge, ROCKET FACTORY AUGSBURG has secured a €186.9 million contract and PLD SPACE €158.9 million. All three must complete an orbital flight before 2028.

These contracts are not funding rounds. They finance both capability improvements and future launch services. The European institution is acting simultaneously as a funder, anchor customer and market organiser.

ISAR AEROSPACE is competing with Spectrum, a two-stage launch vehicle fuelled by liquid oxygen and propane that is designed to carry up to one tonne into low Earth orbit. Its first flight, launched from Andøya in Norway in March 2025, ended after roughly 30 seconds. The company is now preparing a second vehicle and says it has a launch manifest extending beyond 2028.

RFA is developing RFA One, a three-stage rocket whose ESA-backed configuration is designed to place up to 500 kilograms into a 500-kilometre sun-synchronous orbit. The company holds a UK licence to operate from SAXAVORD, but its first launch remains pending after several technical setbacks.

PLD SPACE is using the 2023 suborbital flight of Miura 1 as the foundation for the development of Miura 5. The Spanish launch vehicle is intended to carry up to 540 kilograms into sun-synchronous orbit from Kourou. With €488 million in cumulative funding and its ESA contract, PLD SPACE now commands resources on an entirely different scale from HYIMPULSE.

The German startup cannot simply follow the same trajectory with less capital. It must prove that its technological choice changes the economics of the problem.

Paraffin must become an industrial advantage

HYIMPULSE’s main distinguishing feature lies in its engine. A conventional liquid-propellant rocket stores fuel and oxidiser separately, then uses pumps, pipes and injectors to deliver them to the combustion chamber. A solid motor contains a mixture that is ready to burn from the moment it is manufactured, making it easier to store but difficult to stop once ignited.

HYIMPULSE sits between the two. Its fuel is a solid block of paraffin placed inside the combustion chamber. Liquid oxygen is injected to start and sustain combustion. Interrupting the oxygen supply makes it possible to shut down the engine and, depending on its configuration, restart it.

Using an inert solid fuel also simplifies some assembly and transport operations. The system does not require two liquid-propellant circuits and should theoretically reduce the number of components. HYIMPULSE says this architecture could cut construction costs by approximately 40%. JOIN CAPITAL, for its part, describes a rocket with half as many parts and a pathway towards halving the cost per kilogram.

These figures remain industrial targets rather than verified economic performance. HYIMPULSE has nevertheless moved beyond displaying an engine on a test stand. Following several campaigns in Lampoldshausen, its 75-kilonewton hybrid engine was integrated into the SR75 suborbital launch vehicle. SR75 lifted off from the Koonibba Test Range in Australia on 3 May 2024. The flight validated the ignition, propulsion and stability of an initial integrated vehicle.

SR75 is approximately 13 metres long and is designed to carry up to 250 kilograms to a maximum altitude of 200 kilometres. Its engine is pressure-fed, and the vehicle has a parachute system for payload recovery.

But SR75 is not SL1. The future orbital launcher will weigh 54 tonnes at lift-off, comprise three stages and be designed to place up to 600 kilograms into low Earth orbit. Its 90-kilonewton engine, tested on the ground in 2025, uses a turbopump feed system. That turbopump reintroduces some of the mechanical complexity hybrid propulsion is supposed to eliminate. HYIMPULSE will then need to coordinate multiple engines, lighten the liquid-oxygen tanks, separate the stages, protect the payload, control the trajectory and execute a sufficiently precise orbital injection.

The SR75 flight therefore reduces the risk attached to the propulsion principle, but validates neither SL1’s complete architecture nor its industrial cost.

SR75 must become a product before SL1 reaches orbit

HYIMPULSE no longer wants to present SR75 as a mere demonstrator. It is now trying to turn the vehicle into its first source of revenue.

A suborbital flight does not place a payload into orbit. It sends it along an ascending trajectory, gives it a few minutes of microgravity or exposes it to specific speed and altitude conditions before it returns to Earth.

These missions appeal to laboratories seeking to conduct microgravity experiments, manufacturers needing to qualify components before they are used in space, and organisations testing sensors, communications equipment or materials. They are less complex than orbital launches and can be sold without waiting for SL1 to be completed.

The second SR75 flight is due to take place from SAXAVORD in the Shetland Islands before the end of 2026. It will be HYIMPULSE’s first launch from European territory. The Scottish spaceport will provide the infrastructure and operational support.

Defence could shorten the route to early revenue

The funding round also reveals a shift in HYIMPULSE’s positioning. The company no longer presents its rockets solely as vehicles for carrying scientific experiments or small satellites. It is placing increasing emphasis on military applications.

Its suborbital roadmap targets speeds of up to Mach 15 and ranges of up to 10,000 kilometres. According to HYIMPULSE, these capabilities could meet government demand for hypersonic testing, sensor-system qualification and threat simulation. These specifications do not correspond to the SR75 currently presented by the company. They belong to a future product range that has yet to be developed and tested.

The market is nonetheless real. Developing a radar, interceptor or defence system against hypersonic missiles requires the ability to reproduce trajectories and speeds close to those of the threat. Governments have access to few platforms capable of conducting such tests, while international tensions are increasing the budgets available.

Germany has announced €35 billion in investment in military space capabilities by 2030. This funding will not, of course, be allocated to launch vehicles alone. It is intended to finance communications and Earth-observation satellites, their protection, orbital surveillance and the infrastructure required for their deployment.

Cost per kilogram is no longer the only consideration in this market. A military customer may accept a higher price to secure a particular trajectory, an independent launch window, a confidential mission or the ability to replace a damaged satellite rapidly. Value therefore shifts from transport to availability.

The presence of JOIN CAPITAL and ACE CAPITAL PARTNERS takes on its full significance here. The former invests in space, surveillance and dual-use technologies, while the latter was created to finance aerospace and defence startups. HYIMPULSE is now funded as much as a potential supplier of military infrastructure as a new commercial operator.

Suborbital activities could therefore provide institutional contracts before SL1 is ready and offer one way of compensating for the company’s absence from the European Launcher Challenge.

More small satellites do not guarantee a market for small launchers

At first sight, the proliferation of satellites appears to offer HYIMPULSE an obvious market. According to NASA, 4,577 spacecraft were launched in 2025, nearly 60% more than in 2024. Excluding STARLINK, 45% of the spacecraft placed into orbit weighed 200 kilograms or less. The number of satellites weighing between 11 and 600 kilograms increased by approximately 10% year on year.

But 70% of all spacecraft launched in 2025 belonged to the STARLINK constellation. More importantly, most small satellites do not fly on small rockets. They use spare capacity aboard larger launch vehicles.

SPACEX has industrialised this practice through its Transporter missions. The company currently charges $350,000 to carry 50 kilograms into sun-synchronous orbit, followed by $7,000 for each additional kilogram. At this price, a non-reusable European microlauncher will struggle to win a competition based on cost alone.

A dedicated launch allows a customer to select the orbit more precisely, exercise greater control over the schedule and avoid the constraints imposed by a primary payload. It can also integrate its satellite at a later stage or impose specific confidentiality and environmental conditions.

In 2025, Christian Schmierer compared SPACEX’s rideshare launches to a bus service and HYIMPULSE to a taxi.

Orbital transfer vehicles are also gradually eroding this advantage. Carried aboard a rideshare mission, they can collect several satellites and move them into more precise orbits. HYIMPULSE is developing its own response with HyMOVE, a vehicle presented as capable of transporting, hosting or deploying up to 400 kilograms in orbit.

This extension could enable the company to sell a more complete transport chain. It also adds a third programme that must be financed, manufactured and qualified.

SL1’s real market is therefore unlikely to be megaconstellations. It will more probably consist of institutional, military and commercial customers for whom control over the mission matters more than the lowest possible price.

A €350 million order book that remains difficult to assess

HYIMPULSE says it has an order book of more than €350 million across its suborbital and orbital programmes. This is a considerable figure, representing almost three times the cumulative funding announced by the company, and appears to confirm demand for independent launch services. In 2024, at the time of SR75’s first flight, HYIMPULSE reported an order book of more than €100 million.

Industrialisation begins after the first success

HYIMPULSE now employs more than 100 people across Neuenstadt am Kocher, Ottobrunn and Glasgow. The funding will allow it to continue developing SL1, expand production capacity and scale its commercial operations in Europe and other markets.

The company says it can build capacity for up to 12 launches a year before targeting 50 annual missions by 2030. That is almost one rocket a week.

At that scale, the main challenges are manufacturing identical engines, producing composite tanks capable of holding liquid oxygen, inspecting every component, organising supplies, booking launch sites and maintaining several vehicles at different stages of production.

It must also find 50 missions. Investors specifically emphasise the lower component count and reduced capital requirements. The argument has merit: every component removed can potentially reduce assembly time, inspections, the number of suppliers and the risk of failure.

It does not, however, relieve HYIMPULSE of the need to finance testing, early production vehicles and infrastructure before commercial revenue arrives. While €50 million may allow the company to clear several important milestones, it is harder to view the round as the final financing required to complete SL1, conduct its qualification flights and reach industrial production rates.

Three possible paths emerge. Suborbital missions begin to generate meaningful revenue. HYIMPULSE secures a major institutional or military contract. Or the company returns to the market to raise a substantially larger Series B.

SL1’s timetable remains unclear. The company has set the end of 2026 as the deadline for SR75’s second flight but has not explicitly given a date for SL1’s maiden launch. Previous announcements pointed instead to 2027. It would therefore be imprudent to combine the two milestones into a single promise.

HYIMPULSE is trying to replace some of the capital available to its competitors with a simpler architecture and earlier revenue. The bet is coherent, but it removes none of the trials awaiting a launch vehicle: qualifying its stages, securing regulatory approvals, converting reservations into contracts, building several identical vehicles and reaching orbit.