KENT, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 8, 2026--
Stoke Space Technologies, Inc. the rocket company developing fully and rapidly reusable launch vehicles, announced today that it has completed an initial closing of its billion-dollar Series E financing round. This funding brings Stoke’s total capital raised to $2.3 billion and will support the company as it prepares for its first orbital launch, expands production and launch capacity, and accelerates development of its larger Nova Block 2 launch vehicle.
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The round was co-led by Point72 Ventures and Spark Capital, with participation from General Innovation, Glade Brook Capital, US Innovation Technology, Washington Harbour Partners, Woven Capital, Y Combinator, and other new and existing investors.
“Stoke is pursuing what we see as one of the most important opportunities in space transportation: making launch fully reusable, reliable, and scalable,” said Chris Morales, Partner at Point72 Ventures. “Having supported Stoke through multiple stages of its growth, we believe this company has demonstrated both the exceptional technical progress and the ambition to build a launch system capable of serving the market at industrial scale. That progress has strengthened our conviction in the team. We are proud to support Stoke as it moves toward flight and high-cadence operations.”
“Every mature transportation system is built around fully reusable vehicles. It’s the only way to reach the cost floor while scaling availability. Space transportation will be no different,” said Andy Lapsa, co-founder and CEO of Stoke. “We are humbled by the trust our investors and customers have placed in us in pursuit of this critical generational challenge. This investment enables us to scale toward delivering the capability and cadence our customers require.”
The financing advances the development of Stoke’s core reuse technologies, alongside manufacturing, test, launch, and recovery infrastructure to support high-cadence operations. Stoke’s Nova Pathfinder vehicle is approaching its first flight. Pathfinder will carry payloads to orbit while proving Nova’s core architecture, full reuse technologies, and operational capabilities. Stoke is targeting early 2027 for the first orbital launch of Pathfinder.
Over the last several years, the launch market has been sending a clear and consistent signal demanding more capacity, greater availability, and flexibility to fly larger missions. Accordingly, the Series E funding also supports an expanded product roadmap. Stoke’s higher capacity Nova Block 2 vehicle is already under development and carries forward the architecture and technologies being proven on Pathfinder. Nova Block 2 delivers 15 metric tons to low Earth orbit (LEO) in a 5-meter payload fairing. Its first launch is targeted for 2029, with production and flight cadence ramping quickly from there.
“ Full reusability is the inevitable end state of the market, providing an order-of-magnitude cost and service advantage over partially reusable rockets,” said Clay Fisher, General Partner at Spark Capital. “Stoke had the right thesis seven years ago and has paired that prescient vision with a blistering pace of execution. As a result, they stand uniquely positioned to give customers more choice and capacity when they need it, and to unlock an enormous new economy in space.”
For a deeper look at the vehicle architecture and development strategy, see Stoke’s roadmap from Nova Pathfinder to Nova.
“Nova Pathfinder is how we turn the promise of Nova into flight-proven capability,” Lapsa said. “Pathfinder allows us to learn quickly, reduce risk, and prove the hardest parts of a fully reusable architecture in flight. Nova Block 2 scales those lessons into the capacity and cadence our customers are asking for. This investment allows us to move with urgency on both and brings us closer to delivering payloads to any orbit at any time.”
About Stoke
Stoke is building fully and rapidly reusable launch vehicles designed to provide reliable, on-demand transportation to, through, and from space. Its vehicles are designed for rapid turnaround and high-frequency operation, dramatically lowering the cost of access while expanding the range of missions that launch systems can serve. Stoke’s technology development has been supported by NASA, the U.S. Space Force, the Defense Innovation Unit, the National Science Foundation, and other commercial and government partners.
The upper stage flight article for Flight 1 of Stoke Space’s Nova Pathfinder launch vehicle at the company’s headquarters in Kent, Wash.
DETROIT (AP) — Former President Barack Obama on Saturday seized on what he described as cruelty and indecency coming from President Donald Trump and his Republican allies, stepping into one of the nation's ugliest midterm fights as he worked to rally Democratic voters in two Midwestern battlegrounds.
First in Ohio, Obama took aim at Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who has doubled down on an advertising campaign featuring the estranged mother of Democratic rival Dr. Amy Acton. Trump and Vice President JD Vance have also defended the ad, even as Republican leaders across Ohio, including Gov. Mike DeWine, have called for its removal.
“In recent days, we’ve seen there is no line he will not cross, no low he will not sink to,” Obama said of Ramaswamy, noting that Acton has “spoken movingly about her painful childhood and all she’s experienced: abuse, neglect and homelessness.”
Later in Michigan, Obama condemned critics of Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, suggesting that they're using his name or his faith to tear him down.
“We have seen this movie before. I starred in it,” Obama told a packed high school gym in Detroit. “I’ve got a long-form birth certificate to prove it."
“Abdul is as Michigan as it gets," he added.
Obama, 65, remains the Democratic Party’s best motivator nearly a decade after leaving the White House. And he's taking his star power on the road in the final days of the midterm elections, which will help determine the balance of power in American politics on Nov. 3.
Trump cast his own ballot on Saturday in Florida, where he defended the Ramaswamy ad, which has emerged as a national flashpoint a little more than a week before Election Day.
“This is a disgrace,” Trump said. “The mother said that Amy Acton is a liar, and she’s no good. And you know what? I don’t think you can get a better reference on that.” He added that if his own mother had said anything bad about him, it would be front and center.
The Ramaswamy campaign video features Acton’s birth mother, Donna Arthur, calling her “a liar” and insinuating she has mental health issues.
Acton, Ohio’s COVID-19-era health director, has made no secret of facing homelessness and abuse as a child. Arthur lost custody of her children after their stepfather, Arthur’s husband, was indicted on a charge of rape involving Acton.
The abuse allegedly happened from December 1976 to April 1978. Cledith Arthur failed to show for a court appearance and became a fugitive. Donna Arthur remained married to him until his death in 2004.
Appearing before Obama, Acton spoke as if addressing Ramaswamy directly.
“My opponent has chosen to exploit, intentionally, my childhood to save his stumbling campaign, but it’s not going to work,” she said. “Decency still matters.” She added: “Mr. Ramaswamy, you are not just out of touch, you are out for yourself and you are a danger to my state. Apparently there is no low to which you won’t stoop.”
Although Ohio has become more reliably Republican, it's been a hotly contested battleground this year. Trump and Vance have both visited the state in recent weeks to drum up support for Sen. Jon Husted and Ramaswamy. And the controversy over Ramaswamy's ad has ratcheted up the already high temperature.
Michigan, too, is a critical state this midterm season, with high-stakes contests for the Senate and governor.
While Obama addressed both races, he offered a passionate defense of El-Sayed, a former public health official running against former Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican.
The former president pushed back against those who call El-Sayed a radical, declaring that “Abdul shares my values.” He also acknowledged that El-Sayed was critical of him after his 2012 reelection for not following through on all of his progressive campaign promises.
El-Sayed wrote that Obama “was not the right choice — he just wasn’t the wrong one.”
“Some of these folks say, well, you know, Abdul didn’t like some of the things you did as president,” Obama said in Detroit, wearing a blue shirt with no tie, his sleeves rolled up. “You know who else doesn’t agree with everything I do? Michelle Obama. Michelle Obama, about five times a day.”
Democrats hoped that Obama’s appearance in the city, which is three-quarters Black, could bolster support for El-Sayed among Black voters. In the primary, his opponent Haley Stevens won Wayne County, which includes Detroit, by about 6 percentage points. Former Vice President Kamala Harris, the first Black and South Asian vice president, campaigned for El-Sayed in September.
Chunnika Hodges, who lives in Detroit and canvassed for El-Sayed on Saturday, said some Black voters are supporting Rogers because they don’t think anything has changed after years of voting for Democrats. Some are also wary of El-Sayed because of his progressive policies, Hodges said.
“We don’t lean to the conservative, but we have seen that within our community,” Hodges said. “There are conservative Blacks, conservative Democrats.”
And while Obama talked up Democratic candidates in Ohio and Michigan, he also spoke at length about Trump.
He accused the Republican president and his family of rampant corruption and called out his inability to lower costs, noting that Trump has instead focused on building a new White House ballroom and helipad on the South Lawn.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he seems very focused on home renovation," Obama quipped. “He should be on HGTV.” He went on: “There's gold everywhere. He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.”
The former Democratic president acknowledged that the nation has Trump for another two years, until his term ends. But voters are not stuck with Trump’s allies, he said.
“We’re not stuck with a spineless Congress and Republican governors who are handling lawlessness and carelessness and cruelty and indifference for working people,” Obama said. “After two years of chaos and cruelty and corruption and incompetence … you get a chance to say enough is enough.”
Obama will headline a rally in Georgia next week with Sen. Jon Ossoff and candidate for governor Keisha Lance Bottoms. Trump is slated to speak in Georgia Saturday.
Peoples reported from New York. AP writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed. GaNun is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Former President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign rally for Democratic Ohio Senate candidate Sherrod Brown, Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
Former President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign rally for Democratic Ohio Senate candidate Sherrod Brown, Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
Former President Barack Obama greets the crowd during a campaign rally, Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
Former President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign rally for Democratic Ohio Senate candidate Sherrod Brown, Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
Former President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign rally for Democratic Ohio Senate candidate Sherrod Brown, Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, attends a campaign rally before Vice President JD Vance speaks at the Sharonville Convention Center, Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026, in Sharonville, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
