About Varda

SpaceX made it cheap to get to orbit. Nobody built the way back. Varda is building the way back.

The company started inside Founders Fund in late 2020, when partner Delian Asparouhov worked out that reusable rockets were about to collapse the cost of launch, and that the real business would not be getting things up, it would be bringing things down. He recruited Will Bruey, who spent five years at SpaceX as a lead hardware engineer on Falcon and Dragon, to run it. Bruey is CEO, Asparouhov is Chairman, and the company builds everything in El Segundo. Its product is a satellite that carries a payload to orbit, processes it in zero gravity, then drops a capsule that comes home at Mach 25 and parachutes onto a range in Utah or Australia. In February 2024, that capsule became the first commercial spacecraft in history to return cargo from orbit.

The company has raised ~$572M to date. Six flights, real revenue, and the only working off-ramp from orbit.

Varda co-founder Delian Asparouhov on why some things are better made off the planet.

The Opportunity

Satellites already made telecom and imaging work from orbit. Manufacturing is the next category, and it is the one that needs a ride home.

Two businesses ride the same vehicle. 

1. Defense pays the bills today. A capsule reentering at 18,000 miles per hour recreates conditions the Pentagon cannot produce on the ground, so Varda sells seats on it for hypersonic and missile-defense testing. The Pentagon spends billions a year on hypersonics research, and the biggest bottleneck in the program is test capacity. You cannot simulate Mach 25 in a wind tunnel, so flight test slots are scarce and booked out. Varda’s capsule is already coming home at those speeds on a schedule, which makes every reentry a test article the government will pay to ride. Varda closed more defense contracts in the last 90 days than in the prior five years combined.

2. Pharmaceuticals are the long game. Crystals grown without gravity form differently, which can make a drug more stable, more concentrated, or easier to take. Varda signed United Therapeutics in May 2026 and added Mikael Dolsten, the man who ran research at Pfizer for 16 years and oversaw 36 approved medicines, to its board in August. Here is the part most people get wrong. Varda doesn’t manufacture every pill in space. They fly a molecule once, grow a better crystal in orbit, and bring back a starter crystal that lets the drug company make that same improved version in a normal factory on Earth. Varda takes a royalty.

Launch, manufacture, return. Six missions have run this loop.

The prize is biggest in injected drugs for cancer and autoimmune disease. Most are delivered by IV in a clinic today. If zero gravity lets you pack the same dose into a small shot a patient gives themselves at home, that is worth an enormous amount to a drug company protecting an aging product. Varda puts that US market at ~$262B, and the federal health research agency has already funded Varda to run a dozen of these drugs through animal studies. 

After defense and pharma: optics, specialty alloys, battery materials, semiconductors. All of it needs a ride home.

The “why now” is reusable rockets. None of this was possible when every booster was thrown away after one flight. Once rockets started landing and flying again, the price of putting something in orbit collapsed, and a business that made no economic sense a decade ago suddenly did. A generation of companies got funded to go up. Almost nobody funded the trip down. Varda is building the off-ramp, and every industry that eventually goes to orbit has to use one.

Why It’s Working

1. They are the only ones who have done it. Six missions flown since 2023, with capsules brought home to ranges in Utah and Australia.

Four more scheduled missions through early 2027 will bring the total to ten.

2. The defense book is signed. A multi-year commitment with the Pentagon’s main hypersonic test program, flights assigned through 2028. Lockheed Martin, the Missile Defense Agency, the Air Force, and DARPA are all customers.

3. There is real revenue. Roughly $40-$50M expected this year, plus about $210M of signed work not yet delivered. Most companies in this category are still selling a roadmap.

4. Pharma is signing. United Therapeutics is the first large partner, with dozens of molecules behind it. The first commercial drug will fly in October 2026.

5. Regulation became a moat. Varda waited eight months on an FAA license for its first capsule. It now holds the FAA’s first-ever reentry operator license and landing rights through 2028.

6. It is a factory, not a demo. Varda builds its own satellites and heat shields, which is what lets it fly more often for less. Headcount has gone from 130 to over 230 in a year.

Why We’re Interested (LFG POV)

Varda sits at the intersection of three theses we invest behind: space, defense, and the reindustrialization of American manufacturing. Most companies pick one.

It also fits the shape we look for. A hardware company with a government customer funding the build. A capability with high technical barriers and a regulatory path that punishes whoever shows up second. And a long-dated second business riding the same asset, one that reprices violently if it works.

The timing is on point. This round funds Varda to the first patient ever dosed with a drug made in space. Until that day this is a defense company with a science project attached. After it, something else entirely, and management treats this as the last private round before that moment.

Our view is that the reentry vehicle is the asset, and Varda’s flight record and signed backlog make it the only credible owner of that infrastructure this decade.

Notable Investors

1. Lux Capital (seed co-lead, in every round since, co-leading current round)

2. Founders Fund (incubated the company, led the seed, and has followed on since)

3. Natural Capital (co-leading current round)

4. Khosla Ventures (in since Series A)

5. Valor Equity Partners (Series B)

6. General Catalyst (Series A and Series B)

7. Caffeinated Capital (in since the Series A)

8. Peter Thiel (personal investor)

Press

1. Science: Dreams of making drugs and tissues in space get closer to reality (August 2026)

2. BioSpace: Varda announces biopharma leader Mikael Dolsten will join board (August 2026)

3. CNBC: The space race is coming for pharma: why drug development is heading to lower Earth orbit (June 2026).

4. SpaceNews: Sixth Varda mission successfully returns (May 2026)

5. PR Newswire: Varda and United Therapeutics collaborate to advance microgravity-enabled treatments for rare pulmonary disease (May 2026)

6. Payload: Varda, Stratolaunch to launch Pentagon hypersonics (February 2026)
   
   

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Notes

1. Structure. Our SPV is investing into a cap table co-investment vehicle.

2. Limited Allocation. Allocation is limited. Priority will be given to LFG+ Members, then on a first come, first served basis among committed investors.

3. LFG+ Membership. LFG+ Members receive priority access to limited allocation and reduced fees - here are our membership details. To receive LFG+ benefits for this deal, you must activate your membership before the commitment deadline.

4. Limited Information. The information available to us and what we can share will be limited due to the nature of this deal.

5. Terms. Instead of charging an annual Management Fee, we handle it as a one-time, upfront (non-refundable) fee to simplify accounting and cap expenses. Please note that these terms are subject to change until the allocation is finalized. The subsequent fund documents will govern.