The SpaceX Mafia is here
Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo / AFP
- Former SpaceX employees have launched startups with over $3 billion in venture funding.
- The SpaceX Mafia is backed by top venture firms like Andreessen Horowitz and Founders Fund.
- The SpaceX culture of ownership and innovation shaped these leaders and their companies.
Elon Musk was part of the original PayPal Mafia, a club whose members became tech world titans. Now he's building a new legacy: Meet the SpaceX Mafia.
A growing group of former SpaceX employees have founded venture-backed startups of their own. Members of the SpaceX Mafia have raised funding from top venture capital firms such as Andreessen Horowitz, 8VC, and Founders Fund. A handful also passed through Y Combinator, Silicon Valley's famed funding and mentorship program for nascent startups.
SpaceX in December began an insider sale that reportedly values the company at $800 billion, making it the most valuable private company. Its planned IPO is one of the most anticipated public offerings for 2026.
Collectively, SpaceX Mafia companies have raised more than $3 billion in venture capital funding, according to data from analytics firm PitchBook and the founders.
Here's Business Insider's list of 18 startups helmed by SpaceX-employees-turned-founders, in alphabetical order by company name.
Airhart Aeronautics
Total raised: $5.06 million, according to PitchBook
Founding date: May 2022
Key investors: Y Combinator, Liquid2 Ventures, Soma Capital, and angel investors
Number of employees: 8, according to the company
Role at SpaceX: Ermoshkin was at SpaceX for three years and last served as an avionics systems responsible engineer.
Airhart Aeronautics says it is building an easy-to-fly personal airplane to "give everyone the freedom of flight."
"At SpaceX, I learned the value of extreme ownership," Ermoshkin said. "As a responsible engineer, I was expected to understand and drive every part of a project — from early design through production and launch. That experience was instrumental in preparing me to be a founder and CEO."
Apex Space
Total raised: More than $500 million, according to the company
Founding date: September 2022
Key investors: Andreessen Horowitz, Interlagos, Point72 Ventures, 8VC, XYZ Ventures, Toyota Ventures.
Number of employees: Over 230, according to the company
Role at SpaceX: Benassi worked at SpaceX for six years, and last served as a senior propulsion engineer for Raptor turbomachinery and dynamic balancing.
Apex mass-manufactures satellite platforms that can serve a wide range of customers.
"It was an intense training ground where we tackled the most difficult problems by breaking them into manageable parts," Benassi said of his tenure at SpaceX. "My advice to engineers: Think harder, go faster, challenge requirements, simplify first, optimize next."
Argo Space
Total raised: Over $10 million, according to the company
Founding date: 2022
Key investors: Crosslink Capital, Boost VC, Type One Ventures, Stellar Ventures
Number of employees: 22, according to the company
Roles at SpaceX: Robert Carlisle, director of commercial launch sales and national security sales (five years); Ryan Carlisle, director of engineering (nine years); Kirby Carlisle, integration and test engineer (four years)
The Carlisle brothers cofounded Argo Space, which is working on technology that could use water from the moon to propel space transportation. "My time at SpaceX showed me real value is created not by the incremental advances most companies pursue, but by paradigm change," Robert Carlisle said. "My cofounders and I also learned firsthand the myriad benefits of aggressively and urgently getting to hardware build and operation, which we're applying at Argo."
Josh Villbrandt
Total raised: $18.92 million, according to PitchBook
Founding date: February 2021
Key investors: Lux Capital, MaC Venture Capital, Moore Capital Management, Y Combinator, Village Global, Stage Venture Partners.
Number of employees: 27, according to the company
Role at SpaceX: Crabtree was at SpaceX for nearly 11 years, last serving as a senior missions operations engineer.
Epsilon3 builds software for managing engineering, assembly, and testing, primarily in the space industry.
"At SpaceX in the early days, you were given a problem to solve, without much direction on how to solve it," she said. "That environment helped people develop a scrappy attitude and a low ego when it came to doing whatever was needed, no matter the task."
"We're also incredibly loyal," she added. "There are many people I've worked with in the past who are now using Epsilon3 at the companies they started (or joined) after SpaceX."
First Resonance
Total raised: $32 million, according to the company
Founding date: 2019
Key investors: Blue Bear Capital, Craft Ventures, Third Prime, Fika Ventures
Number of employees: 45, according to the company
Role at SpaceX: Software and manufacturing engineer (three years)
Talati now runs First Resonance, a Los Angeles-based startup that makes manufacturing software for hard-tech companies building things like air taxis and nuclear reactors. Talati found that SpaceX's unique talent pool and hard-charging disposition led to results. "The mindset wasn't if something could be done, but when," he said.
Impulse Space
Total raised: $525 million, according to the company
Founding date: 2021
Key investors: Linse Capital, DFJ Growth, Valor Equity Partners, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, RTX Ventures, DCVC, Airbus Ventures, Spring Tide, First Principles Group, Balerion Space Ventures, Tamarack Global, Trousdale Ventures.
Number of employees: More than 350, according to the company
Role at SpaceX: Mueller was at SpaceX for nearly 19 years and last served as propulsion CTO.
Impulse Space builds spacecraft that move satellites and other cargo between different orbits.
SpaceX paved the way for many innovations in the space industry today, Mueller said. Among the lessons he learned: "the importance of building a great team and the value of an optimistic mindset — being willing to push beyond what people think is possible is the best way to break new ground and advance the industry."
K2 Space
Total raised: $450 million, according to the company
Founding date: June 2022
Key investors: Altimeter Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, First Round, Alpine Space Ventures, Redpoint, T. Rowe Price
Number of employees: 200, according to the company
Role at SpaceX: Neel Kunjur worked at SpaceX for about 5 ½ years, mostly recently as a senior avionics systems engineer for Dragon 2.
K2 Space builds large satellites that can operate across multiple orbits. Neel Kunjur cofounded the company with his brother, Karan.
"In many ways, SpaceX was an 'engineering bootcamp' where I was able to rapidly take on more responsibility than I ever thought possible," Neel Kunjur said. "That level of ownership translates well to being a founder, and the exposure to extremely high-caliber engineers helps with building talented teams."
Levels
Total raised: $57 million, according to the company
Founding date: 2019
Key investors: a16z, Trust Ventures, Shrug.
Number of employees: 42, according to the company
Role at SpaceX: Clemente worked at the company for about 5 ½ years as a lead life support systems engineer.
Levels lets users track their metabolic health with real-time glucose monitoring, labs, and personalized coaching.
SpaceX ingrained a mindset of accountability, said Clemente. "The zero-jargon environment encouraged clarity of thought and communication, so people at every layer can follow context and contribute."
Long Wall
Total raised: $500 million, according to the company
Founding date: 2017
Key investors: Venrock, Lockheed Martin, Lynett Capital, T. Rowe Price, Fidelity, and others.
Number of employees: About 75, according to the company
Role at SpaceX: O'Hanley was at SpaceX for about four years and last served as manager of Falcon 9 integration and test.
Long Wall builds missile defense systems. The company started out as ABL, and was focused on commercial launch before pivoting to missile defense in 2024, O'Hanley said.
"The takeaway I appreciate most from SpaceX was learning to be a live player and quickly take on large challenges I'd never seen before," he said. "By constantly being put in this position, you develop a framework, intuition, and disposition to do so confidently. Building a company is exactly this — continuous novel challenges that you can't always anticipate."
Muon Space, Inc.
Total equity raised: $136.2 million, according to the company
Founding date: 2021
Key investors: Congruent Ventures, Activate Capital, Radical Ventures, Acme Capital, Costanoa Ventures, Space Capital, ArcTern Ventures.
Number of employees: Around 200, according to the company
Role at SpaceX: Dyer was an engineering intern at SpaceX in the early 2000s.
Muon Space builds satellite fleets to collect and deliver data about the Earth, including climate and security data.
"When I was there in the super early days (2003, 2004) it really was existential for the company and we didn't know if we'd make it," Dyer said of his time at SpaceX. He added that the team was "executing violently to try and make it."
"As a founder, you're constantly context-switching, whether it's hardware, software, team dynamics," he continued, "and SpaceX helped train me to be fluent in all of it."
Lukas Schulze/Sportsfile for Web Summit via Getty Images
Total raised: More than $100 million, according to the company
Founding date: 2014
Key investors: Amplify, Felicis, B Capital, Y Combinator.
Number of employees: About 100, according to the company
Role at SpaceX: Astorino was at SpaceX for about five months, working as a software engineer on guidance, navigation, and control.
PicnicHealth centralizes medical records, helping patients manage their care and also providing life-science companies with anonymized data for research.
"It's hard to pinpoint exactly what makes [SpaceX] uniquely successful — rapid build-test cycles, first-principles thinking, relentless efficiency, and obsessive focus come to mind," Astorino said. "It's a north star for how I think about PicnicHealth. Healthcare is notoriously hard to change, but so is getting to space."
Plantd
Total raised: $42 million, according to the company
Founding date: 2021
Key investors: American Family Ventures
Number of employees: 70, according to the company
Role at SpaceX: Silvernail, engineering manager for crew and Cargo Dragon (seven years); Tan, senior life support systems engineer (five years, 10 months)
Plantd is a startup in North Carolina that turns perennial grasses into building materials that the company says are carbon-negative and rival traditional plywood.
"SpaceX was basically when school really started," Silvernail said. "In university, you really only get to learn fundamentals with some hands-on stuff that you do in your free time. SpaceX gave me the opportunity to focus on developing my engineering skills while getting a massive amount of responsibility right off the bat."
Photo courtesy of Rebellions Inc.
Total raised: About $460 million, according to the company
Founding date: September 2020
Key investors: Arm, Samsung, Kindred Ventures, Top Tier Capital Partners, Saudi Aramco (via Wa'ed Ventures), SK Hynix, SK Telecom, Pavilion Capital, Korea Telecom, and others.
Number of employees: More than 270, according to the company
Role at SpaceX: Park worked at SpaceX for over a year as a Starlink ASIC design engineer.
Rebellions makes energy-efficient chips and software to run AI systems.
"At SpaceX, I learned the value of being uncompromising when it comes to engineering excellence and ambition," Park said, adding that "we believe real progress starts with those willing to take on what others avoid."
Reliable Robotics
Total raised: $134 million, according to the company
Founding date: 2017
Key investors: Coatue Management, Eclipse Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners
Number of employees: 150, according to the company
Role at SpaceX: Rose, director of flight software (5½ years); Frefel, senior hardware development manager (about 9½ years)
Reliable Robotics makes software that automates aircraft flight, from taxi and takeoff to landing. Rose says his experiences working on government certification processes at SpaceX and Tesla taught him to operate in highly regulated industries.
"Reporting directly to Elon," he said, "taught me a lot about business and management, but it really was my extended time spent navigating a complex government bureaucracy (and enjoying it) that uniquely qualified me for starting Reliable."
Turion Space
Total raised: $57 million, according to the company
Founding date: 2020
Key investors: Washington Harbour Partners, Giant Step Capital, Forward Deployed Venture Capital, Veterans Ventures, Aurelia Foundry, Y Combinator
Number of employees: 125, according to the company
Role at SpaceX: Dynamics engineer (eight years)
Turion Space makes micro-satellites with seniors to monitor objects in space. The company has been awarded a $15 million contract from the US Space Force. At SpaceX, Westerdahl learned to "be like water, learn fast, operate hardcore — and to keep going."
Courtesy of Varda Space Industries
Total raised: $329 million, according to the company
Founding date: January 2021
Key investors: Founders Fund, Also Capital, Natural Capital, Shrug Capital, Caffeinated Capital, Lux, Khosla Ventures.
Number of employees: More than 170, according to the company
Role at SpaceX: Bruey worked at SpaceX for almost five years, and last served as a spacecraft operator and systems officer.
Varda is a space manufacturing company that takes advantage of the benefits of microgravity to process materials in orbit — including pharmaceuticals and fiber optic cables — then brings them back to Earth.
"It is helpful to think of your company as a living organism," Bruey advised other aspiring founders, adding that "you don't control every aspect of its nature or environment, and it needs the nurture and guidance to be healthy, happy, and effective."
Vori
Total raised: $27.9 million, according to the company
Founding date: 2019
Key investors: Greylock, South Park Commons, YCombinator
Number of employees: 55, according to the company
Role at SpaceX: Vehicle systems engineer (one year)
Vori makes software that manages analytics for small- and mid-sized supermarkets.
Launching the demo of the Falcon Heavy rocket and deploying 21 satellites at SpaceX taught Pinkerton "what a focused, mission-driven team can achieve when the bar is set extremely high," he said.
Xona Space Systems
Total raised: Over $150 million, according to the company
Founding date: 2019
Key investors: Craft Ventures, Future Ventures, Trimble, Toyota Ventures
Number of employees: 69, according to PitchBook
Role at SpaceX: Responsible engineer, thrust structure (two years)
Xona Space Systems makes hyper-precise satellite navigation software. In June, the company raised $92 million in a Series B round led by Craft Ventures.
SpaceX challenges commonly-held assumptions that limit progress, Manning said. "That mindset stuck with me. The most impactful companies are able to take things that seem impossible and change the world's perception to believing it is not only possible but inevitable."