STARTUP FROM LA REACHED $40 MILLION

Astro Forge is a Los Angeles-based startup founded in 2021, focused on the groundbreaking venture of asteroid mining. The company’s mission is to explore and extract valuable metals, such as platinum-group metals, from asteroids. These materials, which are rare on Earth, have a high market value, and Astro Forge aims to tap into space as a new frontier for resource extraction.

The startup is led by Matt Gialich, who has brought together a team of experts in space exploration, engineering, and mining to tackle one of the most ambitious goals in modern space tech.

The company has already made significant progress in its mission. In 2024, it raised $40 million in a Series A funding round, bringing its total funding to approximately $55 million. This financial backing supports its ambitious goals, including a key mission set for early 2024. The Brokkr-2 spacecraft, which will be launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, is set to fly by an asteroid, capturing valuable data and images. This mission is a crucial step towards demonstrating the feasibility of asteroid mining, and if successful, it will make Astro Forge the first commercial entity to operate in deep space.

Astro Forge’s long-term vision is to land on asteroids, refine raw materials on-site, and return them to Earth. The company has already outlined the potential for significant profits, estimating that a single mission could return $70-140 million in precious materials. Despite the technical challenges of asteroid mining, Astro Forge’s cost-effective approach — which is much cheaper than similar missions like NASA’s Psyche project — positions the startup as a leader in the emerging space mining industry.

Astro Forge’s work represents a significant leap in the space economy, with the potential to change the way humanity views resources and wealth in the cosmos.