Varda Space Industries has raised $42 million in Series A capital to manufacture a key capability that is only available off-world: microgravity.The startup, which has been in existence for eight months, plans to set up its first space manufacturing facility by 2023 and bring back to Earth advanced products that cannot be made under sustained zero gravity.Khosla Ventures led the round, along with Caffeinated Capital and Lux Capital. Lux Capital, General Catalyst, and Founders Fund also participated. This raises the company's total raise to $50 million, which includes a $9 million seed round in December.Vardas idea differs from that of Jeff Bezos who stated after his trip to space that he wanted to eliminate all heavy industry. They want to create manufacturing processes that aren't possible on Earth in order to produce bioprinted organs and fiber-optic cables, or pharmaceutical products that need fundamentally different conditions from what is available on Earth.The space factory of tomorrow:Bruey, Asparouhov, and Asparouhov believe that microgravity manufacturing is a valuable tool. The International Space Station is a scientific station. Over the past few decades, the ISS has been proving that space can produce new materials and products. These discoveries have been difficult to scale up because it is too expensive to get, stay in, and return from orbit.TechCrunch was told by Bruey that a lot of our R&D is already done in the public sector. They were essentially a ramp to commercialization for the research that's been proven out.The company is currently building a spacecraft with three modules. It includes an off-the shelf satellite platform, a central platform for microgravity manufacturing, and a vehicle to return the materials to Earth. Varda will build the products for the first 10 launches. After the company's process has been proven reliable and cost-effective, Bruey stated that the company hopes to be a contract manufacturing platform that can help other companies build products in space.Asparouhov compared it to the iPhone's App Store. The iPhone wasn't released with the App store. Apple created the first 10 to 11 apps to demonstrate the value of the App Store. We developed the first apps to demonstrate the commercial value of this capability. However, over time we will release an app store.Vardas's plan is to automate all manufacturing. The company can reduce overhead by removing humans from the equation (at least for the moment).Asparouhov stated that investors in NASA and the Department of Defense see the most exciting thing about our approach. They believe that it is far more practical, pragmatic, and commercially viable than any other approach to space manufacturing. Our approach can launch and produce materials within 18 months, as opposed plan that take five years, ten years, or decades to become viable.He said that space manufacturing can be thought of in two ways: Varda must spend a certain amount per unit-mass to bring things up to microgravity and Varda must spend a dollar per unit mass to produce value in microgravity. Finding products that maximize the difference between these equations is key to profitability. For example, novel pharmaceuticals could make huge profits if the innovation gains of zero gravity are correspondingly large.Bruey stated that the company envisions multiple missions in 2023. Then, it will move to once per quarter, then imagine multiple reentry capsules returning products every day. Varda's co-founders believe that space-made products are in sufficient demand to support this type of launch and reentry schedule.Bruey believes that space manufacturing is a more promising industry than space tourism.He said that it will impact many aspects of humanity's experience on Earth and bring about significant improvements in the quality of life.
