WASHINGTON — Lunar lander developer Intuitive Machines announced Aug. 31 it raised $20 million through a sale of stock as the corporate gears up for its first mission.
The Houston-based company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it sold roughly 4.7 million shares to an unnamed institutional investor at $4.25 per share. The corporate said it could use the proceeds for “general corporate purposes and dealing capital needs.”
In a press release, Steve Altemus, chief executive of Intuitive Machines, said the funding would help the corporate because it develops a series of lunar lander missions and begins work on a NASA contract, in partnership with KBR, to offer engineering services on the Goddard Space Flight Center. Work on that contract, which has a not-to-exceed value of $719 million over five years, is about to start out within the fourth quarter.
“This equity investment will help ensure a smooth transition and supply the working capital needed to execute for our customer on day 1,” Altemus said.
In an Aug. 14 earnings call, Erik Sallee, chief financial officer of Intuitive Machines, argued that the corporate’s money available — $39.1 million as of the top of the second quarter — together with revenue from the NASA contract and lunar lander projects can be sufficient, at the same time as the corporate recorded an operating lack of $13.2 million within the quarter.
“The money on our balance sheet, plus the milestones we’ve on the books, should take us through,” he said. Intuitive Machines, he added, had a $50 million equity financing facility “which we are able to use opportunistically to offer further cushion, if needed.”
The corporate said within the announcement of the $20 million stock sale that it not expected to make use of that equity financing facility. “We proceed to be disciplined and opportunistic with capital,” Sallee said within the statement. “Given the timing of milestone-based payments, we elected to strengthen our balance sheet defensively, as we grow and execute on recent programs.”
In that earnings call, Intuitive Machines said it was withdrawing earlier guidance it provided on revenues and money balance. Sallee blamed that on “delays on government acquisition timelines and U.S. federal budget uncertainty” and never the lack of any particular contract.
Intuitive Machines is moving ahead with its first lander mission, IM-1, scheduled to launch as soon as Nov. 15 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 initially of a six-day launch window. Two additional missions, IM-2 and IM-3, are scheduled to launch in 202.4 All three are carrying payloads for NASA through its Industrial Lunar Payload Services program.
Shares in the corporate closed at $4.76, down 8.3%, in trading on Nasdaq Aug. 31.