A rocket built so that both of its stages come back and fly again has $1 billion more behind it. Stoke Space, based near Seattle, announced the Series E round on September 8. Point72 Ventures and Spark Capital led it.
Stoke wants rockets that fly again quickly, so launches cost less and can happen more often. The money also matters for defense work: Stoke is in a US Space Force launch program whose ceiling tripled to $17 billion in July, and it can compete for missions after Nova's first successful flight.
How Nova comes home
Stoke's upper stage has a metal heat shield cooled by liquid hydrogen, the same fuel that powers the stage. The company rates the shield for 100 flights. The first stage uses seven of Stoke's own Zenith engines.
The first version, Nova Pathfinder, is meant to carry 3,000 kilograms to low Earth orbit with full reuse, or 7,000 kilograms if the rocket is not recovered. Stoke finished structural testing of the first stage in June, with 46 tests. It will launch from Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral, which it has rebuilt.
A bigger rocket next
With the round, Stoke showed Nova Block 2 for the first time. It is planned to carry 15 metric tons to orbit with full reuse, using 14 engines on the first stage and 12 separate engines on the upper stage, so it can keep going if one fails. Its first launch is set for 2029.
The first Pathfinder flight has slipped from late 2026 to early 2027. Stoke has now raised $2.3 billion, most of it since January 2025, without a single flight to orbit.
