Innovative Rocket Technologies Inc. (iRocket) is attempting its announced merger with BPGC Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) founded by former US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.
The proposed deal aims to value iRocket at $400 million and is expected to close by the end of 2025. On the surface, it reads like a spacetech success story, a small startup shooting for orbit with Wall Street wind in its sails. However, the details reveal a much more complex story.
iRocket, a startup with slow progress
iRocket, founded in 2018 by Asad Malik and headquartered in New York, once held promise in the space startup community. Backed by Village Global, a venture firm whose limited partners include Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, and Reid Hoffman, the startup touted an ambitious plan to develop reusable launch vehicles capable of rapid turnaround and 24-hour launch readiness.
The “Shockwave” launch vehicle is based on a proprietary liquid oxygen/methane (methalox) engine platform, featuring design elements that enable minimal refurbishment and high-cadence relaunches. The rocket’s core technologies include 3D-printed engines and a patented ‘MACH-i Landing Engine’ for recovery purposes.
Its proposed vehicle, Shockwave, is designed to lift payloads between 300 kg and 1,500 kg, a range already served by competitors like Rocket Lab’s Electron and Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha, both of which have proven their hardware with real customer missions.
Despite over $1 billion in non-binding letters of intent and memoranda of understanding from prospective government and commercial customers, iRocket has announced no signed commercial launch contracts as of July 2025.
Yet Rocket hasn’t conducted a single test flight. In the rocket business, notorious for its capital intensity and long development timelines, this puts iRocket significantly behind better-capitalised rivals. The first orbital test flight for the Shockwave vehicle is now targeted for 2027. To date, iRocket’s testing has been limited to subscale engine hot fires and test stand operations; the company has not progressed to full-scale flight demonstrations.
Despite this, it has secured two US government contracts, an $18 million agreement with the Air Force Research Laboratory and a $1.8 million contract with the Space Force. The $18 million agreement is structured as a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA), providing primarily access to facilities and government expertise, rather than large-scale cash infusions. The Space Force contract, awarded through the AFWERX program, focuses on the early-stage maturation of engine technology. While not transformative on their own, these contracts demonstrate some level of institutional trust in iRocket’s potential.
Still, it’s unclear whether these contracts can support a credible case for going public. Investors typically look for operational traction or at least robust technical milestones, and so far, iRocket has little to show.
A SPAC with almost no fuel left
SPACs are designed to raise capital through IPOs and use that cash to acquire private firms. BPGC Acquisition Corp. was initially named Ross Acquisition Corp II. It raised a solid $345 million in March 2021. But by September 2024, after failing to close a previous deal with biotech firm Aprinoia Therapeutics, most of that money had been returned to shareholders.
As of late 2024, just $1.6 million, less than 0.5% of the original trust, remains. For a transaction that values the target company at $400 million, this is practically a rounding error. In SPAC deals, it’s not uncommon for shareholders to redeem their money, especially when confidence in the acquisition target is low. But rarely is the cash base this depleted at the time of a major merger announcement.
To keep the deal alive, the SPAC’s sponsors extended the deadline to find an acquisition to March 2026. But that extension alone doesn’t solve the deeper problem: without raising significant new capital, there won’t be enough cash to fund the operations or satisfy any equity payouts for iRocket shareholders.
Funding gap and hopes
Given the SPAC’s depleted trust, the only realistic path to a viable public listing lies in raising additional capital through a PIPE, a private investment in public equity. PIPE deals often serve as a way to fill the funding gap in SPAC mergers, allowing institutional investors to inject capital in exchange for discounted shares.
But convincing institutional backers to buy into an unproven space startup with no flight history, limited personnel, and stiff competition will be a serious challenge. Without a major PIPE, iRocket’s listing could amount to little more than a paper transaction with no financial fuel.
