Dawn Aerospace
Building the world's fastest reusable aerospace plane. Dawn's Mk-II Aurora broke the sound barrier and reached the stratosphere — the first privately-developed aircraft to achieve this in the Southern Hemisphere. Making space access routine, flying multiple times per day from conventional airports.
Dawn Aerospace is redefining space transportation with sustainable rocket-powered vehicles that can launch from conventional runways, enabling multiple flights per day without the need for specialised infrastructure. Beyond atmospheric flight, its advanced green propulsion systems for satellites reduce both cost and environmental impact.
Why we invested
Most satellites still rely on toxic, expensive propellants that are difficult to handle and increasingly banned by regulators. Dawn Aerospace built the alternative: a non-toxic, green propulsion system that is already flying on satellites deployed via SpaceX, Soyuz, and Vega, with customers who say they simply couldn't close their business case with anyone else's technology. The longer play is the Aurora spaceplane, a reusable, horizontal take-off launch vehicle that could dramatically lower the cost and complexity of getting small satellites to orbit. Two bets in one company, with the propulsion business already generating real revenue and the spaceplane pointing toward something much bigger.
- Headquarters
- Christchurch, New Zealand
- GD1 lead
- Vignesh Kumar
