Relativity Space Soars, Reportedly Landing a $500M Investment

Relativity Space raised $500 million to help it build its 3D rocket ships in a round led by Tiger Global Management, CNBC reported on Tuesday.

The raise, one of the largest this year for a Los Angeles startup, would reportedly value the company at $3.2 billion and put the region at the center of a new wave of high-value space companies.

Earlier this year, Hawthorne-headquartered SpaceX raised $1.9 billion at a reported $46 billion valuation.

Neither Relativity nor Tiger Global could be reached for comment.

Relativity was created by two twenty-somethings and seeks to revolutionize spaceflight by building the world's first 3D-printed rocket with its first iteration called Terran 1. The process is cheaper than traditional manufacturing and CEO and co-founder Tim Ellis, an alum of the Jeff Bezos-led space company Blue Origin, aims to eventually automate rocket-making on Mars.

Relativity has picked up steam recently landing a contract with Lockheed Martin to build 3D projectiles for an experimental NASA mission to test cryogenic fluid management capabilities, key to establishing a sustainable presence on the moon and sending crewed missions to Mars. And in June it struck a deal with the U.S. Air Force's 30th Space Wing to develop rocket launch facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

Last year the company closed a $140 million Series C round led by Bond and Tribe Capital in October. Relativity is also backed by investors Playground Global, Y Combinator, Social Capital, and Mark Cuban.

Those funds helped build a new headquarters in Long Beach where the company is likely to expand the development of the Terran 1. It comes months after co-founder Jordan Noone resigned as chief technology officer and became an executive advisor in what he said was preparation for starting another venture.

Editor's note: dot.LA co-founder Spencer Rascoff is an investor in Relativity Space.