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Astrahas been thrown a critical life line in the form of new debt financing , which provides the company with a little more sentence to get hold funding to stave off catastrophe .
The company enounce on Monday that it had closed $ 13.4 million in initial debt financing with JMCM Holdings LLC and Sherpa Venture Funds II , connected to a non - binding term sheet Astra charge with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission in October . Per that document , Astra said it was working with the investors , including JMCM and Sherpa Venture , to lift $ 15 to $ 25 million .
The young investors also consort to provide Astra with a $ 3.05 million loan that will get along due on November 17 . Sherpa Venture Funds II is associate with Scott Stanford and his firm Acme . Stanford was an former investor in Astra and sits on its board of directors .
The novel debt funding replace an earlier understanding that Astra had with investment funds radical High Trail Capital from August — an correspondence that Astra default on on last calendar week . These new investor agreed to purchase the remainder of that outstanding loan and foreswear a cardinal requisite that Astra have at least $ 10.5 million of cash and cash equivalent on hand .
Critically , that early concord was secured by first priority interests in all of Astra ’s asset — which is to say , the debitor would have first antecedence access to Astra ’s machinery , equipment and other assets in character of default — and this new agreement is secured by that same collateral .
The financing is “ to provide Astra with sentence to raise additional fluidity through various capital raising and cost - cutting initiatives and strategic transactions , ” the companionship said in a statement on the intelligence . Astra has been seeking strategical capital letter to abide afloat for weeks , including searching for “ strategic investments ” in its spacecraft engine business it acquire in 2021 .
While source tell TechCrunch thatAstra all but fumble that acquisition , it remains Astra ’s only track to revenue given that the company hasdelayed developmenton its Rocket 4 launch .
