- Varda raised $251M in a Series D led by Lux Capital and Natural Capital.
- The round values the company at $1.6B and takes its total funding to $598M.
- Varda says it has flown six reentry missions and plans over a dozen more through 2028.
Varda Space Industries is still working towards its first medicine made in space. Investors have now put $251 million behind that goal.
The El Segundo, California-based company announced its Series D on September 30. Lux Capital and Natural Capital led the round, which values Varda at $1.6 billion, according to Payload. Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Caffeinated Capital, General Catalyst, 8090 Industries, Giant Step, and Also Capital also joined. Varda says the round takes its total funding to $598 million.
Two of those backers have direct links to the founders. Delian Asparouhov, Varda’s co-founder and president, is a partner at Founders Fund. Will Bruey, its co-founder and CEO, co-founded Also Capital.
Varda raised a $9 million seed in December 2020 and a $42 million Series A in July 2021. Tech Funding News covered its $90 million Series B in April 2024, led by Caffeinated Capital, bringing total funding to $145 million. A $187 million Series C followed in July 2025, led by Natural Capital and Shrug Capital, lifting the total to $329 million.
Lux, which has backed Varda since the seed round, closed a $1.5 billion ninth fund in January 2026. Natural Capital also led Odyssey’s $310 million Series B.
How Varda makes medicines in orbit
Bruey, a former SpaceX engineer, and Asparouhov founded Varda in 2021. Its W-Series spacecraft carry pharmaceutical processing equipment into low Earth orbit and return the processed material in a reentry capsule that reaches Mach 25 on the way down.
Without gravity, the active ingredients in medicines can crystallise in ways that are impossible on Earth, which could allow new drug formulations. Varda points to decades of research on the International Space Station as evidence of that potential.
The company says it has completed six successful reentry missions since its first launch in 2023, with more than a dozen more launches and reentries planned through 2028. Payload reported that the next two, W-8 and W-9, were set to launch aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-18 as soon as October 1. W-8 carries sensors and thermal protection materials as part of a US military study, while W-9 carries a Department of Defense payload to test navigation during hypersonic flight.
Drugmakers are not the only customers. Payload reports that semiconductor makers and national security customers also use the capsules. In May 2026, Varda announced a collaboration with United Therapeutics to study microgravity formulations of treatments for rare pulmonary diseases.
Shahin Farshchi, a partner at Lux Capital, argues Varda stands alone on flight rate: “In-space manufacturing means building what space needs, in space, and making what Earth can’t. Varda is making life-saving drugs impossible to make under gravity. It’s the first and only company delivering a real cadence of launches and re-entries, with capsules built to manufacture the impossible and return it home.”
Rivals are chasing the same thesis
Others are working on the same premise. UK-based Space Forge, which focuses on semiconductor materials, raised a £22.6 million Series A in May 2025, led by the NATO Innovation Fund with World Fund, the National Security Strategic Investment Fund, and the British Business Bank. TFN covered its $10.2 million seed in December 2021 as the largest seed round in European spacetech.
London-based BioOrbit, founded in 2023, is going after drugs specifically. It raised a £9.8 million seed in April 2026, co-led by LocalGlobe and Breega, to crystallise protein-based drugs in orbit, with a focus on cancer antibodies. The company calls it the largest seed round for in-space manufacturing.
Money is flowing in. Private investment in space companies reached $23 billion in the year to June, up from $9.7 billion a year earlier, according to a report from Relm Insurance and Seraphim cited by Reuters.
The same report said in-orbit manufacturing is still early, held back by limited ways to launch and return products, with some companies merging and others stuck in small pilots. SpaceX’s June IPO has also reshaped the funding picture. Return capacity is drawing its own capital: Munich-based The Exploration Company raised $450 million in September for a reusable space capsule.
What Varda has to prove
Varda has shown it can launch and recover hardware. It has not yet shown that a drugmaker will pay for a formulation that only microgravity can make, or that such a drug can reach a patient.
“We started Varda with the conviction that the first product manufactured in space and consumed on Earth would be a pharmaceutical. This round gives us the resources to increase our cadence, deepen our pharmaceutical partnerships, get closer to delivering the first medicine made in space,” said Asparouhov.
The money buys Varda time to test that conviction at a higher flight rate. Whether drugmakers pay for what comes back and whether regulators accept it will decide whether orbit becomes a production site or remains a laboratory.
