TAMPA, Fla. — AST SpaceMobile is constant to go looking for funds ahead of deploying business direct-to-device satellites next 12 months after getting more respiration room with a $60 million discounted share sale.
Some 12.5 million shares were sold June 27 at around $4.75 each, about 27% lower than where they were trading before the sale announcement, topping up the corporate’s money reserves to roughly $200 million.
The Texas-based startup last announced a share sale in November to boost at the very least $75 million — a 12 months and a half after getting around $417 million through its IPO — following manufacturing delays and value overruns for the satellites it’s constructing in-house.
AST SpaceMobile said it’s currently burning through money at a rate of about $40 million every three months.
As well as, the enterprise expects to make use of between $15 million and $25 million per quarter for non-launch-related capital expenditures, which it said may fluctuate over time.
AST SpaceMobile also expects to pay around $45 million to $50 million over the following three months for launch and related services.
“Given the substantial capital needs of our business and business plans, we’re in discussions with various financing sources to reinforce liquidity and should raise additional funds from such sources after completion of this offering,” AST SpaceMobile said in a regulatory filing.
Potential funding options include debt and more sales of equity, including to strategic firms.
AST SpaceMobile has a robust track record of attracting strategic investment, with investors thus far including Japanese technology conglomerate Rakuten and Vodafone, the most important pan-European and African telecoms company.
But in a regulatory filing to make clear statements an AST SpaceMobile executive gave financial news service MergerMarket, which reported June 12 that the enterprise was “racing forward” with potential strategic partners, the startup said it had not yet received commitments from any of them.
AST SpaceMobile chief financial officer Sean Wallace said it has not “entered into any agreement with respect to financing from strategic partners and no such transaction with a strategic partner is imminent.”
SpaceX is slated to launch AST SpaceMobile’s first five business satellites early next 12 months, even though it is unclear how quickly the enterprise could ramp up its business because it and others within the emerging direct-to-device market await regulatory clearances.
AST SpaceMobile announced June 21 that multiple on a regular basis smartphones had achieved 4G LTE download speeds during tests with BlueWalker 3, the corporate’s prototype that SpaceX launched to low Earth orbit in September.
The enterprise announced its first BlueWalker 3-enabled first voice call with a normal smartphone April 25, helping send shares on an upward trajectory until recently.
The shares are currently trading at around $4.70 on NASDAQ, down about 30% from where they were the day before AST SpaceMobile announced its latest share sale.