bluShift Aerospace's Stardust 1.0 rocket, launched in Feb. 2021.
Maine rocket company bluShift Aerospace says it has raised more than $200,000 in the first phase of a crowd-sourcing campaign.
Company founder and chief executive Sascha Deri says positive reaction to the company's first launch last January convinced him to avoid big venture capital donors, for now.
"The fundamental reason why we really like this concept of crowd equity funding is that it really allows us to keep this company in Maine and maintain control over it," he says. "By the time you get to the end, especially something that's so expensive as rocket development, by the time you get through those rounds, you end up not being an owner, and there's a very heavy push, especially in the aerospace industry, to sell your company off to a really large defense company."