TOKYO — Firefly Aerospace has filed paperwork to go public, seeking to raise an unspecified amount of money as part of a trend of space companies taking traditional approaches to public markets.
Firefly announced late July 11 it filed a formal registration statement, known as a Form S-1, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission about its intent to conduct an initial public offering (IPO) of stock. The company is planning to go public on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker symbol FLY.
The S-1 did not disclose the number of shares the company plans to sell or their price, and also did not include a schedule for conducting the IPO. The document did note, though, that Firefly will be a “controlled company” after the IPO with current investor AE Industrial Partners maintaining a majority stake.
The document does provide information about Firefly’s finances. The company reported $60.8 million in revenue in 2024, up from $55.2 million in 2023. The company had a net loss of $231.1 million in 2024 compared to $135.5 million in 2023.
Firefly did see a jump of revenue in the first three months of this year, recording $55.9 million compared to $8.3 million in the same period of 2024. Most of that increase was caused by the successful landing of Firefly’s Blue Ghost 1 lander in March, unlocking milestone payments. Even with the increase in revenue, the company still reported a net loss of $60.1 million in the quarter.
“We have a substantial amount of indebtedness and may incur additional indebtedness in the future,” Firefly stated. The company reported $173.6 million in total indebtedness, of which $136.1 million was in a loan facility. Firefly said it will use the proceeds of the IPO to pay off those loans as well as accrued dividends on some classes of preferred stock, with any remaining funding going to “general corporate and working capital purposes.”
Firefly used the document to outline its place in the space industry as a developer of both launch vehicles and spacecraft. The former includes the Alpha small launch vehicle and Eclipse medium-lift vehicle that Firefly is developing with Northrop Grumman. Spacecraft include the Blue Ghost lander, with two more missions under contract with NASA and a third with an undisclosed commercial customer, and its Elytra spacecraft that will support future lander missions as well as various missions in Earth orbit.
The company reported $22.6 million in revenue from its launch business and $38.2 million from its spacecraft business in 2024. The company did not include revenue or other financial projections for 2025 or future years in the S-1 document, but noted it has a backlog of $1.1 billion.
The document, notably, does not mention the failure of the most recent Alpha launch April 29, when a mishap during stage separation appeared to damage the nozzle of the rocket’s upper stage engine and kept it from reaching orbit. The company has not released any details about the investigation into the failure or plans to return the vehicle to flight.
Firefly is one of several aerospace companies that have gone public or plan to using a conventional IPO. That approach stands in contrast to the wave of companies several years ago that went public through mergers with special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs. Many of those companies have since struggled, including some who became private companies again or went bankrupt.
Karman Space and Defense, a missile and defense company that also provides components for launch vehicles, went public in February and raised more than $500 million. Voyager Technologies went public June 11, raising $383 million to help the company pursue both development of the Starlab commercial space station and opportunities with the Golden Dome missile defense system.
Shares in Voyager sold at $31 in the IPO and closed up more than 80% in the first day of trading. Those shares have since given back some of those gains, closing July 11 at $41.82.
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