York Area hits $1 billion valuation after AEI funding deal

Spacecraft producer York Area Techniques is promoting a majority stake within the firm to personal fairness agency AE Industrial Companions at an enterprise valuation of $1.125 billion, CNBC has discovered.

The deal, introduced on Tuesday, makes York the most recent house unicorn — an organization valued at over $1 billion on the non-public markets. AEI took a 51% fairness stake in York at that valuation, folks aware of the deal instructed CNBC.

AEI has made a wide range of investments within the house sector over the past two years, taking positions in corporations like Sierra Area, Firefly Aerospace, Redwire, Terran Orbital and Virgin Orbit. BlackRock’s non-public fairness arm joined AEI within the York funding.

AEI declined to touch upon the deal, the phrases of which weren’t disclosed. York didn’t instantly reply to CNBC’s request for remark.

Based mostly in Denver, Colorado, and based in 2012 by CEO Dirk Wallinger, York has steadily expanded its product line of spacecraft that it builds for purchasers eager to function satellites in orbit. York manufactures what is understood within the trade as a spacecraft “bus,” the principle construction and physique of a satellite tv for pc, and focuses on low-cost merchandise that vary in dimension from a family oven to a fridge.

York has greater than $1 billion backlog of contracts to this point — most notably an award to construct spacecraft for the Pentagon’s in-development satellite tv for pc web system.

The corporate maintains a number of amenities with about 165,000 whole sq. ft of producing house, with capability to provide greater than 750 satellites per 12 months.

In a press launch, AEI stated that Wallinger shall be staying on as CEO whereas Chair Charles Beames will proceed serving on the York board of administrators.