AstroForge Raises $40M to Mine Asteroids for Platinum
AstroForge built its spacecraft in just a few months after problems with the original manufacturer. Credit: AstroForge

AstroForge Raises $40M to Mine Asteroids for Platinum

AstroForge (portfolio) raised $40M to finish building a spacecraft in the next few months to rideshare on the Intuitive Machines IM-2 mission. “We are still very much on track to return the first amount of platinum back to Earth before the end of this decade.”

All other companies with such aspirations have failed, which always gives investors pause. But a lot has changed in the space industry since those failures, and these launches can now happen at less than a tenth of the prior cost. A National Academy of Science paper argued that the metals needed for batteries and renewable energy infrastructure could start to go up in price, “potentially delaying the clean energy transition“ and that demand for metals will force mining companies to dig in places where such metals aren’t as readily available, which comes with significant economic and environmental costs.

Asteroids in our solar system however, are full of metals needed by industry on earth, and in higher concentrations, and thus potentially easier to mine. Geopolitics are also a factor as China controls most of the platinum mines on earth.

[SpaceNews, Payload Space, Ars Technica, AstroForge Blog]



Dale Stenberg

Home Inspector #HI17441/ Entrepreneur

1mo

Go get it!

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Congrats Matthew Gialich! Cant wait for y'all to drop the price of rare earths! We want to use more tantalum capacitors. Jokes aside, we are cooking up some space-ready tech of our own. If you want to outsource some HW/EE to a small and nimble firm with experience designing for space, Feel free to reach out. 🚀 🌌

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Roman Pikalenko 🇺🇦🦩

Building content ecosystems for climate brands on social & email | Generated $200k+ in LinkedIn-attributed revenue for clients | Always highly caffeinated ☕️

1mo

Absolutely crazy. Congrats, Matthew & Jose!

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Ajinkya Pawar

Vice President Operations & Strategy | Market Development | Go to Market | Business Development | Top 1% Industry SSI Rank | Helping Businesses Expand and Thrive in Asia

2mo

Congratulations AstroForge! 👏

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Daniel Jaye

Ad-Mar Tech/Big Data

2mo

Now I regret turning down my job offer from JPL.

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