Apex, the world’s leading manufacturer of productized, configurable satellite bus platforms, announced it has raised over $200 million in new growth funding, nearly doubling the company’s valuation to $2.3 billion, just months after surpassing a $1 billion valuation. The round was led by Glade Brook Capital Partners and co-led by Washington Harbour Partners, with support from new and existing investors.

The new funding will accelerate Apex’s expansion of its high-rate satellite manufacturing campus, support further vertical integration of key subsystems, and fund ahead-of-need manufacturing of its productized satellite platforms as demand for proliferated commercial and national security constellations continues to grow. 

“This raise is all about scaling the business to meet the demand Max and I highlighted when we founded Apex, which has continued to grow in the subsequent years,” said Ian Cinnamon, CEO and Co-Founder of Apex. “Proliferation is the name of the game these days, and it’s only possible with suppliers like Apex that can actually execute on their model to build satellites at an industrial scale.”

Since its founding in 2022, Apex has focused on solving one of the space industry’s biggest bottlenecks: spacecraft production. While launch cadence has rapidly increased, satellite manufacturing has remained slow, bespoke, and capacity-constrained. Apex’s productized satellite bus platforms are designed and built ahead of need to enable customer constellation deployments at the scale and speed required by today’s critical missions. As proliferated space architectures become increasingly central to both commercial and national security missions, Apex is also expanding its role in next-generation defense systems. In support of the broader Golden Dome for America initiative, Apex was recently announced as a collaborator with Northrop Grumman on the company’s work to advance scalable space-based interceptor capabilities for the U.S. Space Force. The collaboration reflects growing demand for commercially manufactured satellite platforms capable of supporting resilient, constellation-scale defense systems.

Apex continues to ramp production at Factory One, its high-rate manufacturing facility in Los Angeles, which is capable of producing over 200 satellites per year at peak production. To satisfy accelerating customer demand, Apex is expanding its Factory One Campus, with an additional 30,000 square feet of space to support its rapidly growing team, which has more than doubled in the past year to over 350 employees. Later this year, a handful of Apex satellites will head to space, building additional flight heritage for the company after it celebrated the two-year anniversary of its first Aries satellite being launched, which continues to execute its mission in low Earth orbit (LEO).

To support this next phase of growth, Apex has named Michael Kopet as its Chief Financial Officer. Kopet joins from Axon, where he served as Vice President of Finance and partnered closely with the C-suite and Board of Directors, driving growth, margin expansion, and R&D investment directly positioning him to help Apex scale its manufacturing operations and execute against the demands of an accelerating customer pipeline. 

“Space is undergoing a fundamental transition from bespoke programs to scalable, proliferated infrastructure,” said Paul Hudson, Founder and Chief Investment Officer at Glade Brook Capital Partners. “Apex has built exactly the kind of business needed to support that shift. The Apex team has demonstrated an exceptional ability to execute quickly while building for long-term scale, and we’re excited to support the company as it expands production and further solidifies itself as a key member of the American space industrial base.”

The funding comes as Apex advances several major milestones across its next-generation spacecraft platforms and national security initiatives. Nova 1, the satellite platform hosting Project Shadow, America’s first commercially led on-orbit space-based interceptor demonstration is still on track to launch this summer. The mission is designed to validate the core technology behind Orbital Magazines, spacecraft designed to host and support space-based interceptors (SBIs) that protect the U.S. and its allies from missile threats. In addition to validating key technologies supporting next-generation Orbital Magazine architectures, Project Shadow demonstrates Apex and the broader commercial industry’s ability to advance critical capabilities without waiting on government funding.   

“Project Shadow is a statement about where the industry is headed,” said Cinnamon. “Future national security architectures will require speed, scale, and iteration. We’re building the model and the infrastructure layer to support that future.” “We believe Apex is defining a new category within the aerospace and defense industry,” said Mina Faltas, Founder and Chief Investment Officer at Washington Harbour Partners. “The company’s productized approach to spacecraft manufacturing, combined with its speed, commitment to reliability, and growing production capacity, positions Apex to become a foundational partner for the next generation of proliferated constellations and resilient space architectures.”

Apex’s three satellite platforms — Aries, Nova, and Comet — support a broad range of customer missions in LEO & GEO, carrying payloads as large as 3,000 kg on its recently announced ‘Mini’ configuration of its Comet platform. Apex’s customers are launching missions in the coming years for everything from remote sensing and communications to in-space power generation and proliferated national security architectures.

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