M
Moon Express
Focused on lunar exploration and resource utilization, offering commercial missions and spacecraft systems to democratize access to the Moon
About Moon Express
Moon Express is a private American space exploration company focused on developing low-cost, scalable transportation systems to the Moon. Founded in 2010, the company’s long-term mission is to unlock the Moon’s scientific and commercial potential, including mining lunar resources and supporting future lunar settlement and exploration.
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Headquartered at Cape Canaveral, Florida, Moon Express made headlines in 2016 when it became the first private company to receive U.S. government approval for a commercial mission beyond Earth’s orbit. The company aims to provide robotic lunar lander services for scientific, commercial, and exploration missions. Its lander platform, known as the MX series, is designed to transport small payloads to the lunar surface at a fraction of the cost of traditional missions.
Moon Express envisions the Moon not just as a destination but as a gateway to deeper space. Its roadmap includes mining valuable resources such as water ice, which could support life support systems and fuel production for future space missions. The company is also aligned with global efforts to make space exploration more sustainable and accessible by reducing launch costs and leveraging innovative technologies.
Although Moon Express has not yet conducted a lunar mission, it remains one of the early private companies that laid the groundwork for commercial lunar exploration. Its goals align with broader industry trends aimed at democratizing space access and creating new economic opportunities beyond Earth.
At a glance
- Status
- Closed
- Founded
- 2010
- Headquarters
- Cape Canaveral, United States
- Employees
- 37
- Open positions
- None listed
- Dealroom signal
- 0.0/100
- Sector
- Space, Core AI, Space Tech, Space Exploration, Space Resource Exploration, In-Space Human Presence, Space Upstream, Hard Tech, AI Applications, DT and LS, science-based
- Technology
- Artificial Intelligence, Deep Tech
- Business model
- Manufacturing
- Client focus
- b2b
- Investment activity
- 1 company, latest Feb 2017
- Capital deployed
- $3.4M
- Preferred round
- EARLY VC
Knowledge graph
More headlines
Funding history
Company financing events and reported valuations.
| Deal type | Date | Amount | Valuation | Investors | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SERIES BOther financing | Oct 2018 | $10M | $40M | Undisclosed | ↗ |
| EARLY VCOther financing | Oct 2018 | $2.5M | $10M | Minerva Capital Group | ↗ |
Growth signals
Latest recorded traffic for Moon Express is 950 monthly website visits, down 63.5% over the last three months. Moon Express's team grew 0% over the past year.
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Investments and acquisitions
Recent portfolio relationships for companies that also act as investors or acquirers.
Investors
From Dealroom's funding and investor records, grouped by the round each investor first entered.
Series A5 investors entered at this stage
Founders Fund- NJNaveen Jain
David J. La Placa
Scott Banister
Minerva Capital Group
Series B and later5 investors entered at this stage
Tencent- RVRichmond Global Ventures
- RCRaymonds Capital,
Firoz H. Lalji
Autodesk
Other known investors2 additional known investors
Graph Ventures
Kelvin Santos
Source: Dealroom Talent Intelligence.
Global footprint
team presence
Market sentiment
An AI-synthesised read of the highest-engagement posts about Moon Express on X, ranked by likes and reposts, corporate channels excluded.
Reading the room on X — pulling top posts and synthesizing themes…
Source: X recent search ranked by engagement (likes + retweets) · Synthesis by Claude · Cached for 1 hour
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