Astra brings on new CFO as it looks to scale launch and propulsion businesses

A new chapter for the space company is being defined by the appointment of a Silicon Valley veteran as its new CFO.

He has held a number of roles in his career, including head of capital markets, VP of treasury, and CFO at Virgin. He was the CFO at Veev. The current CFO, Kelyn Brannon, will finish out this financial quarter before the new CFO, Marcos, starts work.

According to a person with knowledge of the change, the hiring of Martinez is a strategic move for the company as it navigates capital management and scales its businesses.

Brannon was tailor-made for the company as it transitioned from a startup to a public company, according to her LinkedIn profile. In a deal that injected the company with $500 million, she guided the merger of the two companies. A filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission shows that the SPAC deal had a small number of redemptions.

Markets are also in a new stage. There is now a more high-pressure and risk-averse equity environment where raising cash may not be as easy as it used to be. The merger plans of Italian company D-Orbit and Tomorrow.io have been reversed this year, as space investors and private companies have cooled on SPAC deals.

The stock prices of companies that went public through SPAC mergers have plummeted. The shares of Astra have plummeted since their debut. At the end of the company's first day on the market, stock was trading at $12.90 per share, but it fell to just $0.62 per share by the end of the day. There have been a number of launch failures, most recently a mission in June to launch two Earth science CubeSats for NASA.

The company had $200 million on hand and no debt at the end of the quarter. Over the last few quarters, the company has invested a lot of capital, expanding its 250,000 square foot rocket factory in Alameda, California, building a dedicated 60,000-foot rocket engine factory and growing its workforce by 300. The company needs to figure out how to best position itself amid an increasingly crowded field of players, both on the launch services and rocket engine sides, and how to use its existing capital to bring in more revenue. The hope is that the right person will navigate these choppy waters.

There was a mistake in the story that stated the factory was 25,000 square ft. The story has been changed to show that it's 255,000 square feet.