Starpath Robotics, a startup founded by former SpaceX employees, just raised $12 million using this 10-slide pitch deck

• Starpath Robotics, a startup founded by former SpaceX engineers, has raised $12 million in seed funding.
• The startup aims to produce rocket propellant from lunar ice for spacecraft.
• The funding will support a new facility, R&D, and hiring, its CEO said.

Starpath Robotics, a startup founded by former SpaceX engineers who want to make lunar spacecraft reusable, has raised $12 million in seed funding.

Founded in 2022, Starpath plans to mine lunar craters for ice-containing water to help make rocket propellant so spacecraft can refuel and return to Earth.

“We can’t reuse spacecraft that travel to the Moon or Mars; when looking for a company developing options for refueling, we realized no companies were working on this tech,” CEO and cofounder Saurav Shroff told Business Insider.

Starpath’s proposed solution will use a large solar array on the Moon’s surface to provide the power to run mining rovers and a fuel processing plant. That energy will be used to heat the ice before splitting the water’s hydrogen and oxygen and liquefying the oxygen to combine it with combustible fuel, making rocket propellant.

The company aims to help realize prospective industries like lunar mining, space tourism, and off-world manufacturing. Shroff added that Starpath had around 20 staff working at its two facilities in California. He added the startup is aiming to have its technology to be installed on a spacecraft bound for the Moon in mid-2026.

8VC and Fusion Fund co-led the seed funding round. Day One Ventures, Balerion Space, Indicator Ventures, Hummingbird Ventures, and Valhalla also participated.

The funding will go toward the company’s new facility in Hawthorne, California, R&D, and hiring, Shroff said.

Check out Starpath’s 10-slide pitch deck below: