Planning
Article
We maintain investor confidence in our goals with frequent milestones
Name: Skyrora
Location: Edinburgh
Employees: 118
Founded in: 2017
The problem
Skyrora is one of the first rocket companies to emerge from the UK. Their primary goal is to achieve orbital launch capabilities for its rockets in the next decade. Unsurprisingly, Skyrora needs a huge amount of research and development funding. With a small rocket taking five to seven years to develop, they need to keep justifying the merit of its long-term plans to investors.
The solution
The first step for Skyrora was to be proactive with communication. The team spent time doing PR and looking for opportunities to be socially active. They worked with students and the government, which helped to establish a reputation and start building relationships with investors.
The business has a seven-year plan for the project, but the team found that dividing it into clear milestones stopped investors feeling daunted. “We make sure the milestones are easy to understand,” explained Vladimir Levykin, CEO of Skyrora. “We have so many competitors who are going from zero to launch, but we’re taking an incremental, step-by-step approach and creating a roadmap that shows deliverables for each investment round.”
A number of Skyrora’s milestones include commercial opportunities. The business packages technical achievements as standalone offers. They will also trial smaller rockets, which won’t have orbital capabilities but could be used for gravity studies or military targets.
The results
Skyrora continues to grow, recently moving into a larger building in Edinburgh and opening up an additional testing site in Newquay. After building relationships with investors and working on their value proposition, Skyrora is close to completing a £5.5m investment round. To coincide with the raise, the firm will launch three small rockets to demonstrate the progress they have made.
“With investment, you have to focus on the most important thing. Investors don’t have a lot of time, so be simple and clear – you can always add more details later.”