PARIS — Commercial suborbital spaceplane service provider XCOR Aerospace has sold $14.2 million in preferred stock, most of it to its longstanding strategic partner, Space Expedition Corp. of the Netherlands, which will now have two representatives on XCOR’s seven-member board of directors, XCOR announced May 27.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States approved the transaction, XCOR said.
Mojave, California-based XCOR expects to begin short test flights this year of the first version of its Lynx two-seat suborbital aircraft and is targeting commercial flights, of both experiment payloads and people, in 2015.
XCOR said it will use the funds to continue development of Lynx. A smaller capital raise is scheduled for this summer, the company said.
Space Expedition Corp. (SXC) of Amsterdam was already XCOR’s lead customer and the company’s general sales agent.
SXC Chief Executive Michiel Mol said that with the latest equity purchase, “we’re closing ranks with our most strategic partner. We will take the next step together with our first commercial spaceflight.”
XCOR said that in addition to SXC, Chicago Cubs baseball team co-owner Pete Ricketts and existing investor Esther Dyson, a founding member of the Space Angels Network of investors, also purchased shares in the transaction.
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