Astra Space, the launch company that went public in 2021 at a $2.1 billion valuation, is going private again after months of burning cash and failing to secure alternate investment.
The company announced that its board had accepted an offer from its CEO, Chris Kemp, and its CTO, Adam London, to purchase the remaining Astra stock at a price of 50 cents per share. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2024, at which time Astra will cease trading on the Nasdaq, Tech Crunch reports.
After soaring in the stratosphere at a share price of $160+ in mid-2021, Astra last traded today at 59 cents.
It is a precipitous fall for the company, which raised nearly $500 million from its deal with blank-check firm Holicity. Astra touted an ultra-cheap launch vehicle that could be scaled to execute hundreds of missions per year. In an investor presentation from February 2021, Astra said the “mass produced portable launch system” could launch from anywhere in the world. The company told investors it anticipated a bi-weekly launch cadence in 2024. Read more.
