Space Honor Aerospace Technology Group Co., Ltd. (abbreviated as "Space Honor") recently announced the completion of the first tranche of its Series D+ funding round, amounting to 700 million yuan.
The year 2025 is regarded within the industry as the "Year of Capital" for China's commercial aerospace sector. Statistics show that since the beginning of 2025, over 120 disclosed financing events have occurred in the commercial aerospace field, with a total financing amount exceeding 5.2 billion yuan. In 2024, the total financing in commercial aerospace surpassed 20 billion yuan, setting a new historical record.
Driven by factors such as the introduction of the fifth set of listing standards on the STAR Market and increasing industry maturity, leading companies are intensively rushing towards the capital markets. A number of leading companies, including CAS Space, LandSpace, and Yixin Aerospace, have already initiated IPO guidance procedures.
Leading Rocket Company Secures Another 700 Million Yuan in Funding
Space Honor recently announced the completion of the first tranche of its Series D+ funding round, amounting to 700 million yuan. This round was led by Chengdu Major Industrialization Project Phase II Equity Investment Fund Co., Ltd., a fund under Chengdu Advanced Capital. Co-investors included funds under Chengdu Airport Innovation and Entrepreneurship Investment Co., Ltd. and funds under Chengdu Yingyuan Private Fund Management Co., Ltd.
The funds raised will directly accelerate the development process of Space Honor's flagship product, the Hyperbola-3 (SQX-3) reusable launch vehicle. The company is currently steadily progressing through various pre-launch preparations. To date, all products have been fully delivered and assembly has begun, as the company makes an all-out effort towards the first "orbit insertion + maritime recovery" flight test.
Space Honor is the first private commercial launch vehicle company in China to have achieved orbit. It has now established the Hyperbola series of launch vehicles and the Focus (Jiao Dian) series of liquid rocket engines. Among these, the Hyperbola-1 (SQX-1) solid-fuel launch vehicle has successfully achieved orbit multiple times. According to the company, with its establishment in Shuangliu District, Chengdu, the construction of the reusable liquid rocket production base will be further advanced. This project integrates the R&D, production, and testing of large reusable liquid launch vehicles. At full capacity, it is expected to achieve an annual production capacity of 20 Hyperbola-3 series launch vehicles, significantly enhancing the company's core product mass production capability.
Space Honor's website indicates that the Hyperbola-3 is designed for future high-frequency, large-scale space transport needs such as constellation deployment and space station cargo resupply. Utilizing technologies like hold-down release and first-stage recovery and reuse, it aims to achieve high reliability, low cost, and rapid launch capabilities. The rocket is scheduled for its maiden flight and maritime recovery by the end of 2025, with a reused flight planned for 2026.
According to Qichacha, Space Honor, founded in 2016, has completed 9 rounds of financing. In recent years, industrial investment funds, notably those represented by Sichuan state-owned capital, have continued to invest heavily in the company. In September 2024, Space Honor completed its Series C and C+ rounds of financing, totaling 700 million yuan, led by New Alliance Capital and Sichuan Industrial Promotion Fund Investment Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "SIPF"), respectively, with follow-on investments from institutions including Jingming Capital, Huizhu Capital, Anji Pinboluo, Shifang Hengxin Construction, and Qianlima Fund.
In the Series C+ round, SIPF's Sichuan Xingchuan and Sichuan Xietong, in collaboration with Deyang Shifang City, pioneered an innovative cooperation model, making a strategic investment in Space Honor through cross-regional, three-tier联动 (linkage). This marked the first publicly disclosed investment in Space Honor by a Sichuan government fund.
In March of this year, Space Honor announced the completion of the first tranche of its Series D financing, amounting to several hundred million yuan. This round was invested by Sichuan Tianfu Xinyun Digital Economy Development Fund Co., Ltd., a provincial-level industrial investment fund managed by Sichuan Development (Holding) Co., Ltd.
On December 24, 2020, Space Honor officially initiated its IPO guidance filing. On July 19 this year, the company disclosed its twentieth periodic report on the progress of IPO guidance work, indicating its intention to list on the STAR Market, with Tianfeng Securities and CITIC Securities serving as the guidance advisors. The reporting period for this phase was from April 1, 2025, to June 30, 2025.
The aforementioned document also mentioned that regarding existing major issues and solutions, the guidance team would continue to monitor the stability of the company's daily operations, the establishment, improvement, and implementation of internal control systems, and urge the company to continuously enhance its governance and management levels, improving the efficiency of internal control management.
Leading Commercial Aerospace Companies Rush Towards IPOs
Amid the rising financing wave, Chinese commercial aerospace companies are also experiencing a surge in IPO guidance procedures, with several leading companies actively preparing for listings.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) website shows that on September 15, Beijing Microspace Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Microspace") completed its IPO guidance filing with the Beijing Securities Regulatory Bureau, with Guotai Junan Securities serving as the guidance advisor. The filing report indicates that Microspace was established on August 7, 2017, with a registered capital of 62.5625 million yuan. Its legal representative is Gao Enyu, and the company has no controlling shareholder.
Microspace is a unicorn in satellite manufacturing, primarily engaged in the R&D and manufacturing of complete satellites and ground station products. Centered around satellite solutions, it can provide customers with "one-stop" integrated space-ground delivery services, including demonstration, design, manufacturing, testing, launch, and measurement, control, and operation.
In August this year, Shengbang Security announced a strategic investment in Microspace. In June last year, Microspace announced the completion of a 1 billion yuan Series C1 financing round, officially becoming a commercial aerospace unicorn. That round was led by Yuanhe Zhongyuan - Wuxi Economic Development Zone Shangxian Industrial Investment Fund, followed by the Liangxi Science and Technology Innovation Industrial Mother Fund (managed by Bohai Capital), with existing shareholder Qingdao Huizhu Anfulan continuing its support. Qichacha shows that Microspace has completed over 10 rounds of financing to date, with a cumulative financing amount of approximately 2 billion yuan.
In terms of commercial landing achievements, Microspace has demonstrated the capability to secure system-level orders. In the first half of this year, Microspace successfully won the bid for the "Huantian Satellite Constellation Construction" project, which had previously been approved by the National Development and Reform Commission. The bid amount for this project was 804 million yuan. According to the project requirements, Microspace will complete the development of a constellation of 10 remote sensing microsatellites, including 4 optical satellites and 6 SAR satellites, and carry out their launch and network deployment.
Besides Space Honor and Microspace, other well-known commercial aerospace companies such as LandSpace, CAS Space, and Yixin Aerospace have also initiated IPO guidance procedures.
On July 30, information on the CSRC website showed that LandSpace has commenced its IPO guidance process, intending to list on the STAR Market, with China International Capital Corporation (CICC) acting as the guidance advisor.
Following the CSRC's release of the "Opinions on Setting up the Sci-Tech Innovation Growth Layer on the STAR Market to Enhance System Inclusiveness and Adaptability" on June 18 (hereinafter referred to as the "STAR Market Opinions"), LandSpace actively prepared for its IPO. In just over a month, the company signed a guidance agreement with CICC on July 25.
According to the "STAR Market Opinions," the applicability of the STAR Market's fifth set of listing standards has been expanded to three cutting-edge fields: artificial intelligence, commercial aerospace, and the low-altitude economy. It focuses on serving technology enterprises that have made significant technological breakthroughs, possess broad commercial prospects, maintain substantial ongoing R&D investment, but are currently still in a loss-making stage.
The commercial rocket industry involves long upfront R&D cycles, only generating bulk orders and scale revenue upon reaching the commercial launch phase. However, there is currently a huge gap in China's launch capacity. Once rocket companies form stable cooperative relationships with customers, their subsequent growth expectations are relatively stable. Some market institutions forecast that China's rocket industry market size will reach tens of billions of yuan by 2027.
Industry insiders state that leading private rocket companies in China are intensively entering the IPO guidance phase. This is mainly得益于 (benefiting from) the new STAR Market regulations' inclusiveness towards loss-making enterprises and the industry reaching the critical node of reusable technology verification and scaled application. Together, they exhibit characteristics such as targeting the STAR Market, high investment in technological攻坚 (overcoming challenges), and being favored by top-tier capital.
Analysts from Guotai Junan Securities believe that China still needs to improve in terms of launch frequency, payload capacity, and cost efficiency of rockets. Policy and capital are becoming important forces driving breakthroughs in private rockets. They estimate that China's rocket launch market size is expected to exceed 110 billion yuan by 2030. As private rocket companies make breakthroughs in vertical recovery and reusable technologies, the future market space for reusable rockets is expected to expand significantly. In the long term, reusable rockets may become the main driver of growth in commercial aerospace launch capacity.
