Impulse Space raises $500 million at $4.26 billion valuation as space investing surges

NEW YORK, June 2 (Reuters) - Impulse Space, a startup building spacecraft that can ferry satellites and other payloads around in orbit after launch, said on Tuesday ‌it has raised $500 million in a Series D funding round.

The funding round values the ‌company at $4.26 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The company was founded by Tom Mueller, SpaceX's first employee and ​the propulsion engineer who led development of rocket engines that helped turn Elon Musk's company into the world's dominant launch provider.

The round was co-led by venture firms 137 Ventures and Banner VC and brings the total capital raised by the Redondo Beach, California-based company to more than $1 billion, Impulse said.

The ‌fundraising highlights strong investor appetite for ⁠companies building infrastructure for the next phase of the commercial space economy, beyond launch rockets.

As launch costs fall and satellite deployments accelerate, demand is rising for ⁠vehicles that can reposition spacecraft between orbits, deliver payloads deeper into space and service satellites already in orbit.

"Launch has pretty much been solved. The challenge now is getting everywhere else beyond low Earth orbit," Mueller, ​who is ​also CEO of Impulse Space, told Reuters.

Impulse develops orbital ​transfer vehicles and propulsion systems designed ‌to move satellites more quickly once they are already in space.