The audience of Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit SPAC with a valuation of $ 3.7 billion

Virgin Orbit, the derivative of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic satellite launch, is set to go public, announcing Monday that it will merge with a SPAC to appear on the Nasdaq.

The company is merging with Special Purpose Acquisition Company NextGen Acquisition Corp. II, as reported by CNBC in June. It is traded on the Nasdaq with the marker “NGCA” until the expected closing of the transaction at the end of the year, when the shares will become “VORB”.

The SPAC, co-led by George Mattson, who previously co-led Goldman Sachs ’global industrial group, and PerkinElmer’s former president and CEO Gregory Summe values ​​Virgin Orbit at $ 3.7 billion in capital.

The deal is expected to raise $ 483 million for Virgin Orbit, including a $ 100 million PIPE round (or private investment in public capital) raised by investors such as Boeing and private equity firm AE Industrial Partners.

A subsidiary of Branson’s space tourism company Virgin Galactic is privately owned by Virgin Group’s multinational conglomerate, with a minority stake in Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, which has so far invested about $ 1 billion in Virgin Orbit.

The company uses a modified Boeing 747 aircraft to launch its rockets, a method known as aerial launch. Instead of launching rockets from the ground, such as competitors such as Rocket Lab or Astra, the company’s plane takes its LauncherOne rockets to an altitude of about 45,000 feet and drops them just before firing the engine and accelerating to the ground. space, a method the company announces is more flexible than a terrestrial system.

LauncherOne is designed to carry small satellites weighing up to 500 kilograms, or approximately 1,100 pounds, in space. Virgin Orbit successfully completed its first launch in January and the second in June.

Virgin Orbit aims to be profitable based on EBITDA by 2024. The company says it has about $ 300 million in active contracts, with another $ 2.3 billion in “identified sales opportunities currently being pursued.”

The company expects to have revenue of about $ 15 million this year, with an EBITDA loss of $ 156 million. But Virgin Orbit aims to increase that revenue quickly in the coming years, and expects revenue of $ 2.1 billion by 2026.

Virgin Orbit joins the trend of space companies to be made public through SPAC offerings, with Virgin Galactic the first of its recent generation in 2019. Astra rocket builder, AST & Science focused on satellite broadband, satellite data service Spire Global and space delivery specialist Momentus have each begun negotiations, with Rocket Lab launching Wednesday and BlackSky, Redwire, Satellogic and Planet expected to continue in the coming months.