Virgin Orbit, founded by Sir Richard Branson, has been valued at $3.2 billion in a deal to take the satellite launch company public on the New York Stock Exchange.
The company announced plans to merge with Nasdaq-listed special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) NextGen II, as first reported by Sky News.
Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group owns 80% of Virgin Orbit, while Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi sovereign fund, owns 20%.
The deal is the next move in the tycoon's efforts to construct a multibillion-dollar space technology company.
In 2019, he used a similarly structured SPAC agreement to bring space tourism startup Virgin Galactic - with whom he recently completed a successful test flight - to the US market.
Virgin Orbit, which was spun off from Virgin Galactic in 2017, as well as competitors Firefly and Rocket Lab, are considered as front-runners in a new wave of companies developing miniaturized launch technologies to capitalize on the predicted exponential expansion of tiny satellites in the coming years.
They provide a technique of launching satellites into space by air.
Virgin Orbit employs a customized Boeing 747 airplane as a mobile launch site, which the company claims gives it a "significant performance advantage over grounded launch sites" while also lowering carbon emissions and noise impacts that would otherwise be noticed on the ground.
Boris Johnson was photographed in front of one of the business's LauncherOne rockets at Newquay's Spaceport before the G7 conference this summer, giving the company a boost of attention.
It launched ten small NASA satellites into space from its Californian base in January. A second launch was held at the end of June.
The deal is part of a growing trend of corporations going public on the stock market through SPAC or "blank cheque" entities.
SPACs like NextGen II, founded by George Mattson, a former Goldman Sachs banker, raise money from investors through an IPO before merging with a private company, in this case, Virgin Orbit.
The current owners of Virgin Orbit will maintain 85 percent of the company, with public investors holding the remaining 10%.
Some of the remaining shares will be held by investors led by Boeing and AE Industrial Partners, who are investing $100 million in the company as part of the deal. The rest will be held by SPAC's management team.
The transaction, which is anticipated to close by the end of the year, will net the merged business $483 million.
"another milestone for empowering all of those working today to build space technology that will positively change the world," Sir Richard remarked of the news.
