Topline
Firefly Aerospace, a space technology firm whose Blue Ghost lunar lander touched down on the moon earlier this year, jumped more than 50% during its initial public offering on the Nasdaq Thursday, trading over $70 per share before settling closer to $62 later in the afternoon—making the Texas-based rocket developer the most recent successful IPO in a warming market.
The rocket and lunar lander developer was trading at $70 per share at its peak.
Houston Chronicle via Getty Images
Key Facts
Firefly raised $868 million and initially priced shares at $45 before its opening on Thursday.
Before opening, Firefly was valued at over $6 billion, Reuters reported, but its valuation peaked as high as $9.8 billion as the stock price climbed.
In March, Firefly made history when its Blue Ghost lander touched down on the surface of the moon, becoming the first private company to successfully complete a lunar landing.
Big Number
$176.7 million. That’s how much Firefly Aerospace secured in government contracts in July. The company secured a deal with NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services to deliver five payloads to the moon’s south pole in 2029 to support missions evaluating its resources, which the company said included “hydrogen, water, and other minerals, and studying the radiation and thermal environment that could affect future astronauts and lunar infrastructure.”
Surprising Fact
Firefly was founded in 2017 by Jason Kim, a former engineer at SpaceX. The founder, who also serves as CEO, said the company might play a role in developing President Donald Trump’s promised “Golden Dome” missile defense system. “We will be able to rate up our production line to meet that growing demand,” Kim told Reuters.
Key Background
Firefly is just the latest successful IPO in 2025 as the market begins to warm after years of high interest rates and the private equity market’s dominance, according to analysts at Charles Schwab. Firefly’s IPO comes a week after Figma went public, with the design software development firm’s share price jumping 250% on its first day of trading. Firefly is the third space firm to go public this year—Karman Holdings went public in February, with shares opening at $30, up 36% from its target price. Voyager Technologies went public in June, with shares more than doubling in price the day of its IPO, bringing its valuation to $3.8 billion. Shares in the company have since fallen after it posted losses in its second quarter earnings report released earlier this week.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharyfolk/2025/08/07/firefly-aerospace-jumps-more-than-50-in-ipo-before-settling/