Relativity Space

Relativity Space is a privately held American aerospace manufacturing company headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 2015 by Tim Ellis and Jordan Noone. Relativity is developing manufacturing technologies, launch vehicles and rocket engines for commercial orbital launches.

History

2025: CEO appointment of Eric Schmidt

In March 2025, it became known about the appointment of Eric Schmidt as CEO of the aerospace startup Relativity Space, founded nine years ago. Schmidt bought a large stake in the startup, which effectively allowed him to gain control of the company. Relativity Space founder Tim Ellis lost the position of CEO to Schmidt, but will continue to participate in the fate of the company, being a member of its board of directors. Read more here

2020: Raising $500 million in investments

Rocket manufacturer Relativity Space, the closest competitor, SpaceX Elona Musk is ending another round of attracting investment, after which it will become one of the world's most expensive private space companies with a capitalization of $2.3 billion. This became known on November 17, 2020.

Traditional rocket production - from design to launch - takes up to two years, but Relativity can "print" a finished rocket in 60 days, say startup founders Tim Ellis (worked at Blue Origin) and Jordan Noone (worked at SpaceX)^[1].

Led by hedge fund Tiger Global Management, whose assets are valued at more than $40 billion, the company raised about $500 million.

The company will use the raised money to scale operations, increase personnel, as well as purchase materials, transport and more.

Relativity Space, with 3D printing, machine learning and automation, is trying to reduce the cost and speed up the assembly of launch vehicles within days or weeks rather than years.

The company has not yet made a single rocket launch, but plans to launch its first mission in late 2021.

In the previous round, the company raised $140 million for the construction of a 3D printing factory for rockets. It helped her finish work on the Terran-1.

In October, Relativity Space signed a commercial launch contract with NASA and CNBC's Lockheed Martin^[2].

Notes