Apex (Spacecraft Manufacturing) - Series C
$200M Raised
In the same way Apex - Spacecraft Manufacturing can take a satellite bus from blueprint to orbit faster than you can refresh a Twitter feed, they’ve just taken a $200M Series C round and turned it into a masterclass on how to scale, dominate, and leave everyone else playing catch-up at 17,000 mph.
Founded in 2022 by Ian Cinnamon and Maximilian Benassi, two names that sound less like startup founders and more like operatives in a Cold War novel, Apex didn’t just wander into the space industry. They came in guns blazing, chasing a real bottleneck: the fact that getting a payload into orbit was like trying to buy a PS5 during lockdown. Their solution? Aries, a standardized satellite bus that’s customizable, reliable, and, most importantly, delivered faster than the industry even thought possible.
You don’t set a record for clean-sheet design-to-orbit time (under one year) by accident. You do it because you understand that in this game, whoever controls the bus controls the future. And Apex isn’t driving just any bus, they’re running an express train for payloads heading to LEO, MEO, GEO, and beyond.
Point72 Ventures led the Series C convoy, with 8VC riding shotgun and heavy hitters like Andreessen Horowitz, Shield Capital, CRV, Upfront Ventures, Toyota Ventures, Washington Harbour Partners LP, and StepStone Group stacking the deck. Not just throwing money around, betting on a team that knows how to turn hardware into dominance and manufacturing floors into launch pads.
Inside their 50,000 square foot "Factory One" in Los Angeles, Apex is scaling production like it’s a Netflix series after a breakout season. Aries is already the headliner, but Nova and GEO Aries are waiting in the wings, prepping for 2026 launches that’ll shift the center of gravity in satellite manufacturing even further towards LA.
Apex isn’t just playing for commercial operators, either. U.S. Space Forces – Space (S4S) deals, Tier 1 defense primes, orbit transfer partnerships, this is the kind of customer list that startups dream of and old-guard aerospace firms lose sleep over. When your Aries SN1 celebrates a year on orbit while competitors are still fumbling through their Gantt charts, you’ve earned the right to be a little louder.
Ian and Max are not just leaders; they’re architects of an entirely different tempo in space manufacturing. They’re showing the world that fast isn’t reckless when you build it right. That scalable doesn’t mean vanilla. And that the future doesn’t wait politely, it accelerates.
With $311M now fueling the engines, Apex isn’t aiming for incremental growth. They're swinging the doors wide open on a market exploding with demand. Payload customers don’t just want a ride anymore. They want reliability, speed, and the ability to call their shot. Apex isn’t giving them options, they’re giving them liftoff.
Let’s connect and keep the momentum going across the tech ecosystem. Whether you’re a founder shaping the future, a leader driving change, a VC backing bold ideas, or an investor spotting the next big thing—together, we’re pushing boundaries. Proud to be building the future with you.
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