Carbon Rocket Tanks: Blackwave Closes Funding Round

Munich When Bastian Behrens and Raphael Setz founded the carbon high-performance component manufacturer Blackwave in 2016, they both had one goal. “We wanted to be able to send a part into space within ten years,” says Behrens.

They have now reached their goal much faster: The first rocket with a carbon component from Blackwave will be launched before the end of this year. Customer and project are secret – but other projects are to follow in 2022.

According to industry estimates, Blackwave will turn over a seven-digit amount in the current year – with high growth rates. The company has just moved into a new production hall in Taufkirchen near Munich, and Behrens is already thinking about the next capacity expansion.

The growing demand brings Blackwave four million euros in a new round of financing from well-known new investors. The economist Ann-Kristin Achleitner has already invested in Isar Aerospace, among others. She and her husband, Deutsche Bank Supervisory Board Chairman Paul Achleitner, join as business angels. Added to this is Alpine Space Ventures.

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Bülent Altan is one of the people behind the venture capital manager. The engineer and manager worked for Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX for more than a decade, helped develop the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets and made it to “Vice President”. He is currently CEO of the laser communications company Mynaric.

Aerospace needs technological innovations, says Altan, from the smallest components to the largest parts of rockets or satellites. Blackwave brings important products to this growing market.

As a new member of Blackwave’s advisory board, he wants to help the Taufkirchen-based company to establish further contacts – above all with companies from the “New Space” scene that are promoting the development of space.

New Space takes the initiative in the space sector

In the past, space travel was characterized by large projects by the state space agencies, they were the main clients of the space companies. Today, many ideas also come from start-ups, New Space is primarily financed by the private sector.

Blackwave founder Behrens sees great potential here for Germany as a business location, which has already lost touch in too many other fields. “Which technologies should ensure our prosperity in a few years? I would be happy if space travel played a decisive role here in Germany in the future and if made in Germany also became a seal of quality in space.”

Blackwave’s customers include traditional aerospace companies such as Ariane and Airbus, as well as new space companies such as Isar Aerospace and Reflex Aerospace. Blackwave wants to increase the proportion of customers from the aerospace industry to more than 70 percent this year. “The material is really needed here,” says Behrens. Sending a kilogram of payload into low-Earth orbit currently costs around 10,000 euros. If you save a kilo on the tank, you can take a correspondingly larger payload with you.

In order to convince customers, Blackwave wants to make lower prices possible in the future – through scalability, i.e. cheaper production in larger quantities. So far, Blackwave has been manufacturing the carbon parts according to individual customer plans.

carbon tank

This is what a small Blackwave carbon rocket fuel tank could look like.

(Photo: Blackwave)

Behrens wants to change that and use the proceeds from the financing round to increasingly develop its own standardized products. Smaller carbon secondary tanks could then be used in rockets by European customers as well as in the USA.

The carbon hype on the mass market is over

At times there was a real hype about the light, extremely durable material carbon. BMW used it extensively for the i3 electric car, which has since been discontinued, and Susanne Klatten got involved on a grand scale at SGL Carbon. But it turned out that the weight has less of an impact on the range of electric cars, and carbon is also difficult to recycle.

Blackwave’s main customers still include car manufacturers such as Porsche and BMW. The use of carbon components can be worthwhile, especially for models with smaller quantities, otherwise they are often too expensive. The weight advantage then comes on top.

More about New Space

In order to keep costs low, Blackwave initially only used the cheap and efficient SMC process (Sheet Molding Compound). Shorter fiber snips are processed, the material has very good flow properties under high pressure and can also be processed into very complex components. Blackwave now also uses other methods.

Blackwave founders Bastian Behrens and Raphael Setz met at TUfast, the student motorsport team at TU Munich. They later did research together at Airbus. In previous rounds of financing, they were able, among others, to ex-Schaeffler CFO Thomas Hetmann, the Unger Capital Management of the family of ATU founder Peter Unger, the entrepreneur Rudolf Schwarz (IABG), business angel Katja Ruhnke and Hirschvogel Ventures from an investment in Blackwave convince.

After fulfilling her first goal this year, Behrens already has a new idea: “If Mars should really be colonized,” he says, “it could well be that I would like to be part of it.”

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