UK-based Gravitilab Aerospace Services has entered liquidation, with the company announcing in a brief 5 August LinkedIn post that it had “ceased trading.”
Documents filed with Companies House on 5 August, but not made available to download and review until 12 August, show that Gravitilab’s shareholders approved a voluntary winding-up at a general meeting held via Microsoft Teams on 20 July. The filings outline that the company is undergoing a voluntary liquidation and that the liquidators, Price Bailey, were appointed by its creditors.
A statement of affairs filed alongside the resolution to wind up and the appointment of the liquidators shows Gravitilab’s financial position immediately before it closed its doors. It details that the company owed more than £700,000 to unsecured creditors. That included £324,465 owed to business creditors, £144,487 owed to 19 employees, £104,515 owed to four directors, and £59,001 owed on funding loans. A total of £15,530.75 relating to employee holiday pay was classified as a preferential claim.
Against its debts, Gravitilab listed just £92,243 as immediately available, almost all of which was held in a client account. After the preferential claim is satisfied, just £76,712 would remain for its creditors, resulting in a £631,070 shortfall.
At least part of the explanation for Gravitilab’s collapse may lie in a major investment the company had counted on that ultimately failed to materialise.
Gravitilab listed a £24.998 million book debt from BNP Finnest Group. The amount appears to be linked to a £25 million investment commitment from an unnamed investment company made in July 2023. By April 2024, just £20,000 of the total investment had been received. Gravitilab subsequently petitioned for Finnest Group to be wound up in October 2024, hoping to recover at least some of the almost £25 million still outstanding. The liquidation of Finnest is still underway.
According to accounts filed in January 2026, Gravitilab employed an average of just three people, including directors, in 2025, down from 14 a year earlier and a peak of 19 in 2023. So, while the company has only now closed its doors, the signs of trouble had been visible for some time.
Gravitilab had been developing a suborbital launch vehicle called ISAAC that would have been powered by a hybrid propulsion system. The rocket was designed to carry payloads of up to 20 kilograms to an altitude of 170 kilometres. According to its website, the rocket was expected to enter operational service by 2025, a milestone that never came to fruition. The company did, however, complete at least two test flights. The first involved a vehicle called Peregrine during an aerodynamic flight test in Australia in 2020. The second used a rocket called ADA, which was launched in August 2021.
European Spaceflight contacted Price Bailey seeking details on whether Gravitilab’s assets or intellectual property would be offered for sale. No response had been received at the time of publication.
