Austin-area’s Firefly Aerospace soars in public trading debut

Cedar Park-based Firefly Aerospace Inc. soared in its public market debut Thursday, listing on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “FLY.”

The space and defense technology company reached a peak valuation of more than $9.84 billion during intraday trading, after its shares began trading at $70 — up more than 55% from the initial public offering price of $45. The stock climbed as high as $73.80 during the session before closing at $60.35.

Firefly sold more than 19 million shares in the offering, raising at least $868 million. By the end of trading Thursday, total volume had approached 30 million shares.

The stock’s performance is being closely watched as a bellwether for the U.S. IPO market and investor appetite for space-related companies. The offering is expected to formally close Friday, when proceeds are finalized and underwriters settle the deal.

Ahead of the opening bell, Firefly priced 19.296 million shares at $45 each — higher than earlier projections of $41 to $43 per share for 16.2 million shares.

Underwriters also have the option to purchase an additional 2.894 million shares, which would further boost proceeds. If exercised, that would mark a sharp increase from Firefly’s last private valuation of $2 billion, following a $175 million funding round in November.

CEO Jason Kim joined Rachel Racz, a Nasdaq senior vice president who oversees Texas and the Southern U.S., in New York on Thursday to watch what he called “history being made” as Firefly went public in one of the largest IPOs in Texas and a major milestone for the space technology sector.

“Firefly Aerospace was founded with the bold vision of making space for everyone as we launch our rockets in south when you see fireflies lighting up the night sky,” Kim said Thursday. “Today, we mark a historic milestone towards reaching that bold vision as we go public. As Rachel said this IPO is one of the most historic space IPOs ever and will continue to enhance Firefly’s ability to deliver on high stakes, critical missions.”

MORE: What’s next for the Cedar Park company that landed on the moon? CEO says more launches

The company drew international attention in March when it became the first commercial company to successfully land on the moon. It also has a growing portfolio of contracts with government and commercial entities including NASA, the U.S. Space Force, Lockheed Martin Corp., Northrop Grumman Corp. and others.

According to its initial IPO filing last month, AE Industrial Partners, one of Firefly’s lead investors, is expected to hold 41.8% of the company’s outstanding common stock after the IPO. AE Industrial would enter into a director nomination agreement to form a group controlling more than 50% of total voting power.

In its initial IPO filings, Firefly reported $60.79 million in revenue for 2024, up from $55.24 million in 2023. It appears to be on track to surpass those totals this year, reporting $55.86 million in revenue in the first quarter of 2025 alone. 

However, its losses have also widened. Firefly posted a net loss of $135.46 million in 2023 and $231.13 million in 2024. For the first quarter of this year, the loss widened to $60.09 million, up from $52.77 million in the same period last year.

The company said its backlog — or the estimated future revenue from contracts — nearly doubled in the first quarter to $1.12 billion, boosted by new deals for its Alpha rocket and engineering services.

The space technology industry has received widespread investor interest and attention over the last few years. Some of this is due to billionaires, like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, investing heavily into their own space companies, but some of it is due to the successes of commercial space companies like Firefly. 

Voyager Space and Karman Holdings, both space technology companies, have gone public this year. Another Texas-based firm, Intuitive Machines, based in Houston, entered the public markets via a SPAC merger in 2022

In interviews after the NASA-backed Blue Ghost One landing, Kim said Firefly was working toward an increased launch cadence, with Blue Ghost Two and Three missions set to launch in 2026 and 2028, respectively, and at least five launches this year for its satellite-launching Alpha small-lift rocket.