Balderton Participates in a $450 Million Series C Round for TEC

Frank­furt am Main/Munich — The space company “The Explo­ra­tion Company” secu­res $450 million for a reusable space capsule — backed by Besse­mer, Atomico, EQT, and Balder­ton. WEIL advi­sed Balder­ton Capi­tal (Balder­ton), one of Europe’s leading venture capi­tal inves­tors, on the Series C funding round for The Explo­ra­tion Company GmbH (TEC). The finan­cing is subject to the usual regu­la­tory approvals.

Hélène Huby foun­ded TEC in Munich in July 2021 toge­ther with a group of engi­neers who had alre­ady gained expe­ri­ence working on Euro­pean projects such as the Orion Service Module and the ISS resup­ply vehicle ATV at Airbus and Aria­ne­Group. Since then, the company has grown to more than 550 employees in Germany, France, Italy, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates. 

The Explo­ra­tion Company (TEC) is now a German-French space company that deve­lops a compre­hen­sive range of space trans­por­ta­tion solu­ti­ons, inclu­ding reusable space capsu­les and high-perfor­­mance rocket engi­nes. The new funding is inten­ded, in parti­cu­lar, to further advance the deve­lo­p­ment of the reusable Nyx space capsule, which is desi­gned to dock with the Inter­na­tio­nal Space Station (ISS) and return safely to Earth. In addi­tion, the deve­lo­p­ment of the reusable, high-perfor­­mance Storm rocket engine is to be accelerated. 

At $450 million, this funding round was the largest Series C finan­cing for a Euro­pean space company. The funding round was co-led by Besse­mer Venture Part­ners, Atomico, and the Scaleup Europe Fund, mana­ged by EQT, and supported by exis­ting share­hol­ders such as Balder­ton, Plural, Cherry Ventures, and Red River West. Balder­ton had alre­ady parti­ci­pa­ted as the lead inves­tor in the previous funding round in 2024 and thus remains one of the company’s key investors. 

With this advi­sory enga­ge­ment, WEIL conti­nues to expand its exper­tise in the field of venture capi­tal and reaf­firms its posi­tion in the rapidly growing aero­space sector.

Balder­ton Consul­tant: WEIL

The tran­sac­tion team was led by Private Equity Part­ner Manuel-Peter Fringer (Munich) and included Part­ner Niklas Brüg­ge­mann (Regu­la­tory, Munich) as well as asso­cia­tes Manuel Schmutz­ler, Hannah Bisch­off (both Private Equity, Munich), and Lucas Valio Otto­witz (Regu­la­tory Affairs, Munich). — www.weil.com
About WEIL

Weil, Gotshal & Manges is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,200 attor­neys. WEIL has offices in New York, Austin, Boston, Brussels, Dallas, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, Los Ange­les, London, Miami, Munich, Paris, San Fran­cisco, Washing­ton, D.C., and Sili­con Valley. In Germany, the U.S.-based firm is repre­sen­ted by two offices in Frank­furt and Munich. Here, the firm focu­ses on provi­ding specia­li­zed coun­sel to natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal clients in cross-border private equity and M&A tran­sac­tions, high-profile liti­ga­tion matters, complex restruc­tu­rings and finan­cings, as well as tax planning.