Venus Aerospace closes $91M to scale detonation engine production. Venus Aerospace has secured $91 million in Series B funding led by Houston-based venture capital firm Mercury Fund, with additional backing from Lockheed Martin Ventures, MESH, PEAK6, Starboard Star Venture Capital, Green Sands Equity, and other investors. The raise follows the company's May 2025 milestone: the first successful flight test of a high-thrust rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE). The funding will push Venus from that demonstration phase toward full-scale production of propulsion systems for defense and space applications. The announcement also comes shortly after Pam Melroy, former NASA Deputy Administrator, joined the company's board. How the Engine Works Conventional rocket engines rely on subsonic combustion to burn fuel. Venus's RDRE instead uses a continuous supersonic detonation wave that rotates around the combustion chamber, a design the company describes as the most efficient rocket engine architecture ever flown, outperforming existing systems by roughly 15 percent. That efficiency gain could translate into longer range, more flexible payloads, and stronger performance across both defense and space missions. The engine itself is built using 3D printed components paired with standard materials, a manufacturing approach designed for domestic, large-scale production without dependence on constrained or foreign supply chains. It's also reusable and throttleable, and rather than building separate engines for separate missions, Venus is positioning the RDRE as a shared propulsion platform that can serve munitions, space launch, orbital transfer, and landers alike. Educational Resources Venus reached its first high-thrust RDRE flight test in just over four years, using $80 million in capital, a pace and capital efficiency the company positions as one of the fastest in the propulsion field. With this new $91 million round, total funding moves the company firmly into its scale-up phase. Strategic Context The raise lands at a moment when the U.S. and its allies are prioritizing hypersonic and long-range capability, seeking systems that outperform legacy platforms in speed and reach. Venus frames its work in Texas, built with American engineering talent, as a direct response to that demand for dependable, domestically sourced propulsion. "This financing marks an important step in moving Venus from breakthrough demonstration to scaled capability," said Sassie Duggleby, co-founder and CEO of Venus Aerospace. "Our customers need propulsion systems that go farther, can be produced reliably and are built on supply chains they can trust. We are advancing that capability with American engineering and manufacturing talent to strengthen U.S. defense, expand space access and support the future of high-speed flight." AM Is Becoming the Default for Detonation Engines Venus Aerospace's strategy hinges on a bet that's now widely shared across the propulsion industry: rotating detonation rocket engines can't be built any other way. The geometry these engines require, tight-tolerance injectors, integrated coolant channels, complex internal flow paths, is too intricate for conventional machining, which makes additive manufacturing a prerequisite. Other organizations have arrived at the same conclusion through different paths. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, for example, has leaned on additive manufacturing specifically because the improvement in efficiency is so dramatic that the combustion environment is nearly impossible to contain and keep hardware cool, requiring 3D printed laser powder bed fusion components and specialized alloys like GRCop-42 and GRX-810 to make the engine viable at all. More recently, Astrobotic completed a hot fire campaign for its Chakram rotating detonation rocket engine, with AM playing a central role in enabling the milestone. Two prototypes completed eight successful tests at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, accumulating more than 470 seconds of total run time, including a single 300-second continuous burn believed to be the longest ever recorded for an RDRE. Across these programs, the pattern is consistent: detonation combustion is too extreme for traditional fabrication, and 3D printing is what turns the concept into hardware. Venus's $91 million raise extends that logic from prototype to production scale. Educational Resources 3D Printing Industry is inviting speakers for its 2026 Additive Manufacturing Applications (AMA) series, covering Energy, Healthcare, Automotive and Mobility, Aerospace, Space and Defense, and Software. Each online event focuses on real production deployments, qualification, and supply chain integration. Practitioners interested in contributing can complete the call for speakers form here. Explore the full Future of 3D Printing and Executive Survey series from 3D Printing Industry, featuring perspectives from CEOs, engineers, and industry leaders on the industrialization of additive manufacturing, 3D printing industry trends 2026, qualification, supply chains, and additive manufacturing industry analysis. Featured image shows Venus Aerospace Team. Photo via Venus Aerospace.

Venus Aerospace raises $90M to build hypersonic weapons engines. Key takeaways. * Venus Aerospace raised $90M Series B led by Mercury Fund with Lockheed Martin Ventures participating * The company pivoted from passenger hypersonic jets to defense applications after its May 2025 RDRE flight test * Venus must extend engine burn time from 32 seconds to 6-15 minutes to meet military customer requirements Venus Aerospace closed a $90 million Series B round to scale production of its Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine, a propulsion system that drew unexpected military interest after the company flew one last May. The Houston-based startup, founded by husband-and-wife team Sassie and Andrew Duggleby in 2020, originally set out to build hypersonic passenger jets. That plan is now on hold. Mercury Fund led the round. Lockheed Martin Ventures, MESH, PEAK6, Draper Associates, Starboard Star Venture Capital, and Green Sands Equity also participated. The capital will fund testing and development work on vehicle designs with potential defense customers. Why the pivot from passenger travel to weapons? The answer is straightforward: customers showed up. After Venus successfully demonstrated the first RDRE-powered rocket flight in May 2025, defense contractors came calling with a question the Dugglebys did not anticipate. "What happened when we flew last May is the world looked at us and said, 'oh my gosh, you have a working RDRE, would you sell us one?' And that wasn't what we were expecting." - Sassie Duggleby, CEO, Venus Aerospace Venus now focuses on replacing the solid rocket motors in existing missiles with its own thruster, plus building high-speed space vehicles for military applications. The company believes its engine architecture combines efficiency, throttling capability, reusability, and manufacturability in ways existing propulsion systems cannot match. What makes the RDRE different from conventional rockets? Rotating Detonation Rocket Engines date back to mid-20th century theory. Instead of burning propellants in a traditional combustion chamber, an RDRE creates a continuous supersonic detonation wave that rotates through a circular channel. The physics promised less wasted propellant, but proved difficult to control in practice. That changed with 3D printing and better computational simulations. The University of Central Florida ran the first working RDRE test in 2020. NASA demonstrated one on the ground in 2022. Japan's space agency JAXA fired one briefly in space in 2021. Venus's May 2025 test was the first RDRE to actually launch a rocket into flight. The core engineering challenge has been heat management. "When we first started Venus, the entire story was there's a new type of rocket engine, we think it's going to put out more heat and more thrust and be more efficient, but we think we know how to keep it from melting," Sassie Duggleby explained. "That's been a lot of what our work has been over the last four years, how do we keep this engine from melting, and we've solved that." The burn time problem Venus still needs to solve. Proving the engine works is one thing. Proving it works long enough is another. Across 600 tests, the longest Venus has fired its RDRE is 32 seconds. Defense and space applications will require sustained burns of 6 to 15 minutes. That gap explains where much of the $90 million will go. The Texas Space Commission awarded Venus a grant earlier this year to build a larger test stand. Scaling up testing infrastructure is essential before the company can validate engines for operational use. Where Lockheed Martin fits in. Lockheed Martin Ventures' participation signals strategic interest, not just financial. Lockheed builds many of the missiles and hypersonic vehicles that could eventually carry Venus engines. A venture investment often precedes deeper partnerships or acquisition conversations if the technology matures. For Venus, having a prime defense contractor on the cap table provides credibility with government procurement officials and potential access to classified programs where hypersonic propulsion matters most. Logicity's take. Venus is betting that defense customers will pay for RDRE development today, creating the production scale and reliability track record needed to eventually return to civilian hypersonic transport. It is a pragmatic path, but the passenger jet vision is now years further out. The real test comes when Venus must demonstrate minutes of sustained burn rather than seconds. Defense customers tolerate long development cycles, but they demand results. If the company clears the 6-minute threshold, expect acquisition interest to accelerate. If not, $90 million goes faster than founders expect. Frequently asked questions. What is a Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine? An RDRE uses a continuous supersonic detonation wave rotating through a circular channel, rather than traditional combustion. This design can extract more thrust from the same amount of propellant, making it theoretically more efficient than conventional rocket engines. Why did Venus Aerospace pivot from passenger jets to defense? After demonstrating the first RDRE-powered flight in May 2025, defense contractors approached Venus with unexpected demand for the engine technology. The company shifted focus to hypersonic weapons and military space vehicles where near-term revenue is available. How much has Venus Aerospace raised in total? With this $90 million Series B and its previous $33 million Series A in 2022, Venus has raised over $120 million, plus grants including one from the Texas Space Commission. When will Venus Aerospace engines be ready for operational use? The company must first extend engine burn time from 32 seconds to 6-15 minutes. No timeline has been announced, but the Series B funds testing and development work toward meeting defense customer requirements. Need help implementing this? If you're tracking aerospace and defense technology investments or building competitive intelligence systems for deep tech, reach out to the Logicity team for research support and analysis. Manaal Khan Tech & Innovation Writer Produced with AI assistance and reviewed by the Logicity editorial team. Learn more in its Editorial Policy.

Venus Aerospace raises $91M to mature the world's first flight-proven high-thrust RDRE into full propulsion systems. Jul 08, 2026, 08:00 ET Mercury Fund and Lockheed Martin Ventures back Houston-built, hypersonic-enabling rotating detonation rocket engine technology for American defense and aerospace HOUSTON, July 8, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - After completing the world's first successful flight test of a high-thrust rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE) in May 2025, Venus Aerospace today announced the close of a $91 million Series B financing led by Mercury Fund, a Houston-based venture capital firm, with participation from Lockheed Martin Ventures, MESH, PEAK6, Draper Associates, Starboard Star Venture Capital, Green Sands Equity and other new and existing strategic and institutional investors. The round will fund Venus as it scales development and production, moving its RDRE propulsion system from successful flight demonstration toward deployment for a range of near-term defense and space applications. Current systems struggle to meet customer requirements for range, performance and domestic production. Venus is building to close that gap. The announcement follows the recent appointment of Pam Melroy, former NASA Deputy Administrator, to Venus' board of directors. Unlike conventional rocket engines, which burn fuel through subsonic combustion, Venus' RDRE employs a continuous supersonic detonation wave that rotates around the combustion chamber. The result is the most efficient rocket engine architecture ever flown, by a margin of 15 percent. This efficiency gain can translate into extended range, increased payload flexibility, and more capable systems across defense and space missions where performance margins are critical. Built from 3D-printed components and standard materials, the RDRE is designed for domestic manufacturing at scale through accessible supply chains, reducing reliance on constrained or foreign-sourced parts. The engine is reusable and throttleable, with a wide range of mission applications, from munitions and space launch to orbital transfer and landers. Rather than developing a different engine for each application, Venus is building a common propulsion architecture intended to serve across multiple mission classes. Demand for hypersonic and long-range capability is accelerating as the U.S. and its allies move to field systems that can reach farther and fly faster than legacy platforms allow. Venus is building its engines in Texas with American engineering talent for customers whose missions depend on reliable, sovereign propulsion capability. "This financing marks an important step in moving Venus from breakthrough demonstration to scaled capability," said Sassie Duggleby, co-founder and CEO of Venus Aerospace. "Our customers need propulsion systems that go farther, can be produced reliably and are built on supply chains they can trust. We are advancing that capability with American engineering and manufacturing talent to strengthen U.S. defense, expand space access and support the future of high-speed flight." "Venus is exactly the kind of company Houston capital should be backing," said Blair Garrou, co-founder and Managing Partner at Mercury Fund. "It combines multiple frontier technologies, domestic manufacturing and clear commercial and national security relevance. We believe this team is positioned to lead an important new chapter in defense and space, and we are proud to support a company building breakthrough technology here in Texas." "Lockheed Martin Ventures invests in technologies to help increase mission effectiveness," said Chris Moran, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin Ventures. "Since our initial investment, Venus has progressed very quickly in its technology development. Our reinvestment in Venus recognizes Venus' accomplishments to date and focus on speed to manufacture, cost management and reduction of supply chain constraints. Venus is working effectively to position its propulsion system for the production scale required by defense programs." "This capital allows us to move from successful flight demonstration toward deployable propulsion systems," said Andrew Duggleby, co-founder and CTO of Venus Aerospace. "What differentiates our RDRE is not just that it works, but that it has flown at high thrust and was designed with scale, manufacturability and mission integration in mind. Our propulsion architecture combines efficiency, throttling, reusability and manufacturability in a way that customers need for real defense and space missions. We are focused on translating technical progress into reliable systems for operational use." Venus conducted the world's first flight test of a high-thrust rotating detonation engine in May 2025, reaching that milestone in just over four years on $80 million in capital, one of the fastest and most capital-efficient engine development efforts of its kind. About Venus Aerospace: Venus Aerospace is building next-generation propulsion systems for defense, space, and future high-speed flight. Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Houston, Texas, Venus is developing flight-proven Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE) technology designed to deliver greater efficiency, range, and scalability for defense and space missions. Venus' propulsion systems are designed for domestic manufacturing and mission flexibility across national security and aerospace applications. Venus is backed by Mercury Fund, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Prime Movers Lab, Airbus Ventures, Trousdale Ventures and others. To learn more, visit www.venusaero.com. Media Contact: SOURCE Venus Aerospace