Venus Aerospace closed a $91 million Series B on July 8, led by Mercury Fund and joined by Lockheed Martin Ventures, MESH, PEAK6, Draper Associates, Starboard Star Venture Capital and Green Sands Equity. The round funds the company's push from a proven flight demonstration into full-scale propulsion systems for defense and space customers.
The technology at the center of the raise is a rotating detonation rocket engine, or RDRE -- an engine architecture that uses a continuous detonation wave rather than conventional combustion to generate thrust. Venus flew the world's first successful flight demonstration of a high-thrust RDRE in May 2025, and the company says the design is roughly 15% more efficient than traditional rocket propulsion while enabling vehicles to travel four to six times the speed of sound from a conventional runway.
“Founded in 2020, Venus was one of five companies selected by the Texas Space Commission for state support.”
Venus manufactures its engines using laser powder bed fusion, a metal 3D-printing process that lets the company build complex internal coolant channels and injector geometries that would be effectively impossible to produce with traditional subtractive machining. Founded in 2020, Venus was one of five companies selected by the Texas Space Commission for state support.
For founders in deep-tech and defense-adjacent categories, Venus's raise is a reminder that a single successful flight demonstration can now unlock nine-figure growth rounds if the underlying physics claim is credible and the investor syndicate includes strategic validation from an established prime like Lockheed Martin. For investors, the RDRE's efficiency and speed claims will face their real test as Venus scales toward production-representative engines.
The bear case: hypersonic propulsion remains an extraordinarily capital-intensive and technically unforgiving category, where a single failed test can meaningfully delay customer contracts. What to watch next: Venus's first customer contracts following this raise, and whether Lockheed Martin's investment evolves into a deeper supply relationship.