A bloke who spent 16 years on New Zealand’s America’s Cup campaigns is now building a capsule for the era after the International Space Station.
The founder
Outlier Space is based in Auckland and run by Jamie France, who also spent nearly a decade at Rocket Lab.
How it works
With the ISS heading for retirement, Outlier is building an autonomous, reusable capsule that can ride up on any rocket, hold a customer’s payload in microgravity, then bring it back to Earth.
Some materials form differently without gravity. That makes the target customers US and European pharma, biotech and advanced materials companies that want to make things that are hard to make on the ground. Because the capsule is reusable and not tied to one launch provider, the idea is that customers can fly more often without waiting for a slot on a crewed station.
The raise
Outlier raised US$7.35M (about A$10.5M) in pre-seed, one of New Zealand’s biggest. GD1 led, with Nova Threshold, Airtree, Icehouse Ventures, Investible, Side Stage Ventures and angel Brian Cartmell. The first test flight is targeted for 2028.
My read
NZ already knows how to get things into orbit, thanks to Rocket Lab. This is a crack at owning what comes back down. It’s early and 2028 is a long way off, but the team background makes it one I’ll keep following.