Toyota to invest over $44M in rocket company

Toyota’s mobility subsidiary will invest $44.3 million into a Japanese rocket company.

Interstellar Technologies (IST) is slated to receive Woven by Toyota’s multimillion-dollar investment "by the first close" of its Series F fundraising, the rocket company said Tuesday. It also announced a "business alliance" with Toyota.

IST said it "aims to leverage automotive industry expertise, including Toyota’s production methods, to transition rocket manufacturing into a high-quality, cost-effective, and scalable process." 

"We are excited to collaborate with Interstellar Technologies on the mass production of rockets," Woven by Toyota CEO Hajime Kumabe said. "This business alliance will leverage the Toyota Group’s extensive manufacturing capabilities and combine our expertise to advance rocket production and further drive mobility transformation." 

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As part of the capital and business tie-up, Woven will appoint a director to IST's board and support rocket production by strengthening supply chains and corporate governance, IST said in a statement.

The announcement came after Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda's speech at the CES trade show in Las Vegas on Monday, when he gave updates to the company's experimental Woven City project, which was announced in 2020.

"The future of mobility shouldn't be limited to just Earth, or just one car company," Toyoda said. "Speaking of the sky, we're exploring rockets, too."

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Woven by Toyota’s investment is not the first time Toyota and Interstellar have worked together. The companies have been doing "personnel exchanges" since 2020, the rocket startup said.

In its Tuesday announcement of the $44.3 million planned investment, Interstellar noted the Japanese government wants to achieve about 30 rocket launches per year "by the early 2030s" in order to "meet the growing demand for launches both domestically and internationally." 

Last year, three rockets launched in Japan, according to Interstellar. 

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The rocket company said in August that its Series E fundraising efforts brought it 3.1 billion yen of funding. That round involved third-party share allocation, according to its press release from the time. 

Reuters contributed to this report.