Varda Raises $251 Million Series D After Flying Six Capsules in Three Years

Varda Space Industries closed a $251 million Series D on Sept. 30, led by Lux Capital and Natural Capital, bringing its total raised to $598 million. Payload, a space trade publication, reports the round valued the company at $1.6 billion. A second account of the same announcement says the valuation was not disclosed.

That disagreement is the first fact to settle before anyone repeats the figure. Payload's report carries the $1.6 billion number. MedPath's account lists the amount, leads and history but no valuation. A $1.6 billion price on $598 million of cumulative capital would put the company at about 2.7 times what investors have put in.

Three rounds, three steps up

MedPath lists the prior rounds as a $90 million Series B in April 2024 and a $187 million Series C in July 2025. The Series D is 34 percent larger than the Series C and arrived 14 months later. The round's other investors are Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Caffeinated Capital, General Catalyst, 8090 Industries, Giant Step and Also Capital.

1. Series B (April 2024)90 $ million
2. Series C (July 2025)187 $ million
3. Series D (Sept. 30, 2026)251 $ million

Source: MedPath, Sept. 30, 2026; accessed 2026-10-10

Six capsules flown, more than a dozen promised

Varda has flown six re-entry missions since 2023, according to both Payload and MedPath, and plans more than a dozen additional launches and re-entries through 2028. MedPath adds that a Southern Launch agreement covers 20 more re-entries at Australia's Koonibba Test Range through 2028.

The cadence is the claim the money has to deliver. Six flights in roughly three years is two a year. More than a dozen in the next two years is at least six a year, three times the pace so far. The $598 million raised works out to roughly $100 million for each capsule flown.

Delian Asparouhov, Varda's co-founder and president, said "This round gives us the resources to increase our cadence." Shahin Farshchi, a partner at Lux Capital, said "In-space manufacturing means building what space needs, in space, and making what Earth can't."

What the capsules carry

Payload reports that two capsules, W-8 and W-9, were scheduled to launch on SpaceX's Transporter-18 no earlier than Oct. 1. W-8 carries sensors and thermal protection materials under a U.S. military study. W-9 carries a Department of Defense payload to test navigation during hypersonic flight, and its exterior will test heat shield tiles from Syensqo. The reporting does not confirm whether either flew.

The revenue mix matters because the pharmaceutical story and the defense story are different businesses. Payload says Varda's customers include semiconductor makers and national security programs that want to test hardware at hypersonic re-entry speeds, and it names no drug customer. MedPath names one: United Therapeutics, in a May 2026 collaboration to study whether microgravity processing can improve formulations for a rare pulmonary disease. That is a study, not a product.

Neither account gives a revenue figure for Varda. For other recent rounds on the desk, see Supabase's $150 million round and Turso acquisition and Typesafe's $870 million Series A.

The next checkable events are the W-8 and W-9 recoveries, and the first re-entry from Koonibba under the Southern Launch agreement.