According to public filings, ArianeGroup invested €6 million more into MaiaSpace in late January. Filings indicate that MaiaSpace issued an additional 1.5 million shares as part of the agreement. This brings the total amount ArianeGroup has invested in the company to €10.9 million.
In June 2022 MaiaSpace CEO Yohann Leroy shared that the company planned to raise private capital by late 2022 or early 2023. It’s unclear if this investment from ArianeGroup was what the company had planned when Leroy made that announcement. However, speaking to European Spaceflight, Maiaspace deputy CEO Jerome Vila explained that the investment was “planned” and “in line with [MaiaSpace’s] overall strategy and vision.”
The new tranche of ArianeGroup funding will likely be important for the company to continue its rapid growth. After just over 12 months of operation, the company has grown to approximately 40 employees with an additional nine vacancies currently open on the MaiaSpace LinkedIn and ArianeGroup careers pages.
MaiaSpace was officially announced in late 2021 as a subsidiary of ArianeGroup. The company was founded with the intention of building a reusable microlauncher called Maia that it hoped to debut in 2026. The vehicle is expected to be capable of carrying 500 kg payloads to orbit when its first stage is being recovered or 1,500 kg payloads when it is being launched in an expendable configuration.
As a means of accelerating the development of Maia in order to achieve the ambitious goal of a 2026 maiden flight, MaiaSpace is utilizing the Prometheus rocket engine being developed by ArianeGroup under a contract from ESA. The engine is being developed to be utilized aboard the Themis reusable booster demonstrator, which MaiaSpace will also utilize in the development of its own vehicle.
