York Space rockets to US$4.3bn valuation on NYSE IPO
York Space Systems raised an upsized US$629m from its NYSE IPO late Wednesday, leveraging its clout as a key contractor to the US government’s Golden Dome missile defense program to attract long-term investors.
Goldman Sachs, Jefferies and Wells Fargo priced 18.5m shares at US$34.00, the top of the US$30–$34 marketing range and an increase from the 16m shares marketed.
The offering was 20x oversubscribed, even after the upsize. That allowed the banks to skew allocations toward long-only investors, with the top 10 institutions receiving 40% of the shares sold and the top 25 two-thirds, a banker involved in the offering told IFR.
On their NYSE debut, York shares were trading midday Thursday at US$36.24, 6.6% above offer.
At pricing, York commanded an enterprise value of US$4.3bn, equating to a high-seven times multiple of 2026 forecasted revenue and a low-five times multiple of 2027 revenue, bankers involved in the offering told IFR. That compares to the 50x multiple of 2026 revenue at which Rocket Lab currently trades (and the 1.2x multiple for Comtech Telecommunications), according to LSEG data.
"This is a sector where you have hits and the potential for big misses," said one hedge fund manager who put in for the deal. "York is a high-beta situation where you have to take a bit of a flier."
York expects to generate a full-year 2025 adjusted Ebitda loss of US$7.8m–$9.4m despite growing revenue by 50% to US$387.8m–$384.1m.
York increased its cash holdings on the IPO to roughly US$800m.
Golden dome
York is a key contractor in the US’s Golden Dome missile defense project, a planned multi‑layer, land‑sea‑space integrated shield to protect the US from ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missile threats.
“The Golden Dome budget dwarfs the funds historically allocated to Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture projects,” York founder and CEO Dirk Wallinger said in the online roadshow presentation. “The current administration has identified US$27bn in Golden Dome funding for 2026 and is aiming to invest a total of US$175bn by the end of its term.
“Golden Dome is expected to turbocharge a market [where] we have a track record [of] leadership and success.”
Wallinger said York is set up as a pure-play, space-mission prime that delivers end-to-end hardware and software through the satellite’s full lifecycle, from platform design to on-orbit monitoring.
It prides itself on providing low-cost satellites at a faster pace than peers and on generating revenue not only at launch but also recurring revenue from monitoring and maintenance during a satellite’s average five-year lifespan.
York currently operates 33 satellites in orbit under six different contracts with the US government and has a backlog of 107 satellites.
York partially de-risked the IPO by raising US$241m in November from a late-stage private round that converted into common stock at a 20% discount to the IPO price.
Led by principal backer AE Industrial Partners, the late-stage private investors are subject to a 90-day lockup that is contingent upon York's shares trading 15% above the IPO price. Other insiders are subject to a standard 180-day lockup.