❌

Reading view

There are new articles available, click to refresh the page.
↗️

Interlune raises $5M for initiatives that go beyond mining the moon

✇GeekWire
By: Alan Boyle
An artist’s conception shows a mining operation on the moon, including harvesters and a solar power plant. (Interlune Illustration)

Seattle-based Interlune has raised $5 million in fresh funding to support a business plan that involves building space infrastructure as well as mining the moon for helium-3 and other valuable resources.

The funds were raised through a Simple Agreement for Future Equity, or SAFE, in which investors provide upfront cash to a startup in exchange for shares to be issued during a future priced round. Interlune used the same approach to raise $5 million earlier this year.

Interlune said existing and new investors participated in its latest SAFE offering, which came to light today in a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“The company’s continued traction with government contracts, along with major milestones across the space ecosystem over the past year, makes this a beneficial approach ahead of our next priced round,” Interlune CEO Rob Meyerson said in an emailed statement.

When Interlune was founded in 2020, the company focused primarily on developing technologies for extracting resources from lunar rocks and soil, also known as regolith. Helium-3 leads its target list because that material is more abundant on the moon than on Earth and is highly valued for applications ranging from medical imaging and quantum computing to fusion power. The price for helium-3 can exceed $9 million a pound. 

Meyerson noted that Interlune’s business plan is no longer limited to space mining. “In response to growing market demand, we’ve expanded our product offering to include space infrastructure and survival services, leveraging the same technologies we’ve been developing to harvest natural resources from space,” he said.

In July, Interlune announced it was expanding its partnership with Vermeer, an Iowa-based industrial equipment manufacturer, to develop construction tools for use on the moon. Such tools could support NASA’s 10-year, $30 billion initiative to build the infrastructure for a moon base. Interlune is also adapting its helium-3 extraction process for terrestrial applications.

The company is planning to send its first payload — a mineralogical mapping instrument — to the moon later this year aboard Voyager Technologies’ Griffin-1 lander. Follow-up missions will characterize the moon’s helium-3 reserves and test technologies for excavation and extraction. Interlune plans to start harvesting lunar helium-3 and bringing it back to Earth in the 2030s.

❌