“We looked at each other and decided together: going public now would have been a mistake, the conditions aren’t right. But it is only a temporary stop, it is not a question of “if” but “when”: in any case we will go to the stock exchange ». Joint decision, the one taken by the founder of D-Orbit Luca Rossettini and by the top management of Breeze Holding to end the integration agreement that would have led to the listing of the Lombard space company. Agreement reached last January in the United States to land on the Nasdaq with a valuation of over one billion euros.
«The markets are now in difficulty – explains Rossettini, the offers from the funds arrived but at worse conditions than expected. Space-X itself has decided to postpone the listing of its Starlink network and we have decided to do the same. We only ran the risk of “getting hurt”, at a time when the company continues to run. We will talk about it again in 12-18 months, sooner or later we will get there ».
For the company based in Fino Mornasco and born in 2011, growth actually continues, with 2022 revenues linked to contracts already signed for 11 million euros, a level that already now almost quadruples the numbers of 2021, reaching 3.4 millions. Advances related to carrier Ion, a satellite release orbital transfer vehicle capable of capturing a growing share of the market, guaranteeing customers precise and faster placement of payloads than traditional carriers. Contracts that continue to arrive, such as the one signed a few days ago with the Swiss operator Astrocast for the launch of 20 satellites starting from the first launch in November. Thus, despite having expanded the workforce in just five years from 18 to 220 units, D-Orbit continues to hire at a rate of about ten people a month, an expansion that the stop towards Nasdaq does not stop.
“We are aiming to grow further with a new headquarters – explains Rossettini – and given the mass of orders arriving we are also pushing to increase production capacity, so as not to have to give up on projects, as unfortunately has happened in some cases”.
Starting with the aim of developing controlled de-orbiting systems for the “end of life” of satellites, D-Orbit has in parallel developed the product that today supports the business, Ion Carrier, a system that since the beginning of the year has already placed in orbit 80 payloads. The contracts already signed for subsequent missions are worth about thirty million, supporting the growth path while waiting for a new window to land on the price list.