Raven Space Systems
Modernizing aerospace and defense manufacturing with composite 3D printing and Industry 4.0 solutions.
Website: https://www.ravenspacesystems.com/
Cover Block
PUBLIC
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | Raven Space Systems |
| Tagline | Modernizing aerospace and defense manufacturing with composite 3D printing and Industry 4.0 solutions |
| Headquarters | Broomfield, Colorado, United States |
| Founded | 2020 |
| Stage | Pre-Seed |
| Business Model | B2B |
| Industry | Deeptech / Aerospace and Defense |
| Technology Type | Space, Advanced Manufacturing |
| Geography | North America |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Funding Label | Pre-seed |
| Total Disclosed | ~$2,000,000 equity, plus ~$4.5M non-dilutive contracts |
Links
PUBLIC
- Website: https://www.ravenspacesystems.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ravenspacesystems
Executive Summary
PUBLIC
Raven Space Systems is a Colorado-based deeptech company commercializing a patented Microwave Assisted Deposition (MAD) 3D printing process for composite aerospace structures, with early traction concentrated in U.S. defense and civil space contracts. Founded in 2020 by Blake Herren and Ryan Cowdrey, the company originated in Kansas City and announced in 2025 that it would relocate operations to Broomfield, Colorado, where it has committed to creating 392 jobs at an average annual wage of roughly $130,867 [Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade]. The product focus is on thermal protection systems and lightweight composite structures produced inside what the company describes as autonomous smart factories [Startland News, Aug 2025]. Capital structure to date is intentionally light: a $2 million pre-seed round closed in November 2024 [Crunchbase, Nov 2024] sits alongside roughly $4.5 million in non-dilutive contracts from the U.S. Air Force, NASA, and the National Science Foundation since 2020, including a $1.8 million AFWERX award [BizWest, Aug 2025] [Startland News, Nov 2024]. Both cofounders were named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Manufacturing and Industry list for 2025 [Forbes, Dec 2024], a credibility marker that has helped the company punch above its funding weight in early defense procurement conversations. Over the next 12 to 18 months, the questions worth tracking are whether MAD-printed parts move from research agreements into recurring program-of-record revenue, whether the Colorado facility hits its hiring and throughput targets, and whether a priced seed or Series A round materializes to fund the capex implied by an autonomous factory build-out.
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by Crunchbase, BizWest, Startland News, and the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade.
Taxonomy Snapshot
| Axis | Value |
|---|---|
| Stage | Pre-Seed |
| Business Model | B2B (government and prime contractor sales) |
| Industry / Vertical | Aerospace and defense manufacturing |
| Technology Type | Composite 3D printing, Industry 4.0 |
| Geography | North America (Broomfield, Colorado) |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Funding | ~$2M equity pre-seed, ~$4.5M non-dilutive contracts |
Company Overview
PUBLIC
Raven Space Systems was founded in 2020 by Blake Herren and Ryan Cowdrey, originally headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri's West Bottoms neighborhood [PitchBook] [Startland News, Aug 2025]. The company was built around a research thesis that composite manufacturing for aerospace, particularly thermal protection systems used on hypersonic and re-entry vehicles, was overdue for an automated, additive replacement to layup-and-autoclave workflows. That thesis crystallized into a patented process the company calls Microwave Assisted Deposition, or MAD, 3D printing [Startland News, Nov 2024] [3D Printing Industry].
The first four years were funded almost entirely by non-dilutive capital. Since 2020 the company has accumulated more than $4.5 million in contracts and grants from the U.S. Air Force, NASA, and the National Science Foundation, including roughly $1 million in SBIR awards and a $1.8 million contract through AFWERX, the Air Force's innovation arm [BizWest, Aug 2025] [Startland News, Nov 2024]. Equity capital arrived later: a $2 million pre-seed round closed on November 20, 2024, with participation from What If Ventures, Mana Ventures, FortySix Venture Capital, Backswing Ventures, and Cape Fear Ventures [Crunchbase, Nov 2024] [Tracxn, Nov 2024].
The most consequential recent milestone is geographic. In August 2025 the company disclosed plans to move its headquarters to Broomfield, Colorado, and to build its first smart factory there, citing the state's aerospace cluster. The Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade announced incentives tied to a commitment of 392 new jobs at an average wage of $130,867, or roughly 119% of the Broomfield County average [Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade] [Startland News, Aug 2025]. The relocation, the Forbes 30 Under 30 recognition for both founders [Forbes, Dec 2024], and the closing of the first priced equity round have placed Raven on a noticeably more visible footing entering 2025.
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by Crunchbase, PitchBook, Startland News, BizWest, and the Colorado Governor's Office.
Product and Technology
MIXED
Raven's core technology is Microwave Assisted Deposition (MAD) 3D printing, a process the company holds a patent on and uses to produce composite parts for aerospace, space, and defense applications [PUBLIC] [Startland News, Nov 2024] [3D Printing Industry]. Public descriptions emphasize two end-product categories: thermal protection systems (the ablative or insulating shells used on hypersonic vehicles, re-entry capsules, and rocket components) and lightweight structural composites [PUBLIC] [Capital Factory]. The company's own positioning, taken from its website, is "modernizing composite manufacturing with breakthrough 3D printing and Industry 4.0 solutions" [PUBLIC] [Raven Space Systems website].
The go-to-market wrapper around the MAD process is what the company calls a smart factory: an autonomous, sensor-instrumented production cell intended to bring composite part output into a repeatable, software-defined manufacturing workflow rather than a labor-intensive layup [PUBLIC] [Startland News, Aug 2025] [Capital Factory]. The Broomfield site is described in public coverage as the location for the first such factory build [PUBLIC] [Startland News, Aug 2025]. Detailed throughput specifications, materials menus, and qualification status of specific parts have not been publicly disclosed [PUBLIC].
Validation to date has come primarily through government research agreements. Raven has active research relationships with NASA and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), and the cumulative $4.5 million in Air Force, NASA, and NSF contracts is described in coverage as funding the application of the patented MAD process to specific defense and civil space use cases [PUBLIC] [SpaceNews] [BizWest, Aug 2025]. The technology stack underneath the factory (control software, robotics partners, materials suppliers) is not disclosed in public sources.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Process and customer set confirmed by Startland News, BizWest, 3D Printing Industry, and SpaceNews; product-level specifications remain undisclosed.
Market Research and Opportunity
PUBLIC
The market matters now because U.S. defense demand for hypersonic, re-entry, and high-temperature composite structures is outrunning the capacity of the legacy manual layup supply base. Raven is positioning itself inside two overlapping demand stacks: additive manufacturing for aerospace, and the domestic thermal protection and composite structures supply chain that primes such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and a growing list of new-space entrants depend on.
No third-party TAM specific to MAD-style microwave-assisted composite printing is publicly available, so any sizing has to be triangulated from analogous markets. Public industry coverage and the company's own funding base point to three demand drivers worth naming. First, the Department of Defense's hypersonics portfolio, which has driven the Air Force, Navy, and DARPA to push contracts into smaller suppliers via vehicles such as AFWERX, the same channel that produced Raven's $1.8 million award [Startland News, Nov 2024]. Second, the re-entry and in-space manufacturing build-out tied to expanded NASA and commercial LEO activity, which is the implied use case behind the company's NASA and AFRL research agreements [SpaceNews]. Third, the broader policy push to onshore advanced manufacturing capacity, which is the explicit rationale behind Colorado's incentive package for the Broomfield facility [Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade].
Adjacent and substitute markets are worth flagging. On one side sit established composite primes and tier-one suppliers using autoclave and resin transfer molding processes; on the other sit other additive entrants pursuing metal printing for engines and structural brackets. MAD's competitive question is whether microwave-assisted curing of composite feedstock produces a part that is qualifiable for flight at a cost and cycle time that beats both. Regulatory and macro forces lean supportive: ITAR-controlled domestic supply, Buy American provisions in defense procurement, and continued bipartisan appetite for defense industrial base spending all favor U.S.-domiciled, U.S.-funded suppliers of the kind Raven is becoming.
| Sizing input | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Raven non-dilutive government contracts since 2020 | ~$4.5M | [BizWest, Aug 2025] |
| AFWERX contract (single award) | $1.8M | [Startland News, Nov 2024] |
| Committed jobs at Broomfield facility | 392 | [Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade] |
| Average annual wage at Broomfield site | $130,867 | [Colorado Governor's Office] |
The takeaway: in the absence of a published TAM, the most credible read on Raven's near-term addressable market is the dollar value of defense and civil space composite parts the company can pull through its smart factory, and the contract velocity from AFWERX, NASA, and AFRL is the leading indicator to watch.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Demand drivers and contract values confirmed by BizWest, Startland News, and Colorado state filings; no third-party TAM specific to MAD composites is publicly available.
Competitive Landscape
MIXED
Raven sits in a narrow slice of aerospace additive manufacturing where no direct head-to-head competitor is named in the public sources reviewed for this report, which is itself a meaningful signal about how early the MAD category is.
The competitive map is best understood in three rings. The innermost ring is the legacy composite supply base: tier-one and tier-two suppliers producing thermal protection and structural composites via hand layup and autoclave for primes like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing. These suppliers own the qualification relationships and the program-of-record revenue, and they are the incumbents whose cost and cycle-time disadvantages Raven's pitch implicitly attacks. The second ring is the broader aerospace additive manufacturing cohort, which includes large metal-printing platforms aimed primarily at engine components and structural brackets rather than composite thermal protection. The third ring is research-stage academic and national-lab work on microwave and other energy-assisted composite curing, which is closer to Raven's specific technical lane and from which the company's MAD patent is intended to provide separation.
Where Raven appears to have a defensible edge today is the combination of a granted patent on the MAD process, a four-year track record of non-dilutive funding from three different federal customers, and a state-backed footprint in one of the country's denser aerospace clusters [Startland News, Nov 2024] [BizWest, Aug 2025] [Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade]. That edge is durable to the extent that the patent reads on the actual production process competitors would need to replicate, and to the extent that early Air Force and NASA contracts convert into qualified parts on real platforms; it is perishable if a better-capitalized additive entrant enters the composite thermal protection lane or if a prime decides to develop the capability in-house.
Where Raven is most exposed is capital intensity relative to peers. Building an autonomous composite factory and qualifying parts for flight is a multi-year, capex-heavy exercise, and the disclosed $2 million equity base is modest set against that road. The most plausible 18-month scenario is bifurcated. Winner if: a current AFRL or NASA research agreement converts into a multi-year production contract for a named hypersonic or re-entry program, which would justify and likely catalyze a priced seed or Series A. Loser if: the Broomfield factory build slips past its hiring milestones and the contract pipeline stalls at the research-agreement stage, leaving the company short of the capital required to qualify a flight part.
Data Accuracy: ORANGE -- No named direct competitors surfaced in public sources; competitive framing is inferred from category structure and government customer base.
Opportunity
PUBLIC
If Raven executes, the prize is becoming the default domestic supplier of additively manufactured composite thermal protection and lightweight structures for U.S. hypersonic, re-entry, and small-launch programs.
The headline opportunity is category creation inside a procurement environment that actively wants a new entrant. The Department of Defense has spent the better part of a decade signaling, through AFWERX, SBIR, and direct AFRL research dollars, that it wants additive composite capacity inside the United States, and Raven has captured roughly $4.5 million of that signal already [BizWest, Aug 2025]. The path from research agreement to qualified production part is well-trodden in defense; what makes the outcome reachable rather than aspirational here is that the company already has the customer relationships (Air Force, NASA, NSF, AFRL), a granted patent on the production process [Startland News, Nov 2024], and a state-backed factory footprint with 392 committed jobs [Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade]. The company does not have to invent a market or a customer; it has to convert a pipeline.
| Scenario | What happens | Catalyst | Why it's plausible |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hypersonics supplier of record | Raven becomes a qualified composite TPS supplier on a named hypersonic or re-entry program | An AFRL or NASA research agreement converts into a multi-year production contract | Existing $4.5M federal contract base and AFWERX $1.8M award already place the company inside the relevant programs [BizWest, Aug 2025] [Startland News, Nov 2024] |
| Colorado smart-factory anchor | Broomfield facility ramps to its committed 392-person headcount and serves multiple primes from a single autonomous line | State incentive package executes and a prime signs a multi-part supply agreement | Colorado state government has formally backed the hiring plan and the regional aerospace cluster provides the engineering labor pool [Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade] |
| Platform licensing | The MAD process is licensed or co-developed with a prime or a foreign ally for in-country composite production | A prime contractor or allied government signs a technology access agreement | The patent is granted and the underlying customer set already includes parties (Air Force, NASA) that routinely sponsor tech transfer [Startland News, Nov 2024] |
What compounding looks like for a company like Raven is the defense supplier flywheel rather than a software network effect. Each qualified part on a flight program creates a reference that shortens the qualification cycle on the next part; each additional federal contract adds non-dilutive cash that defers equity dilution; each hire into the Broomfield facility deepens the engineering bench that primes evaluate when they award follow-on work. Early evidence the flywheel is starting includes the progression from SBIR awards to a $1.8 million AFWERX contract [Startland News, Nov 2024] and the parallel decision by a U.S. state to underwrite the headcount build [Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade].
Sizing the win requires comparables rather than a forecast. Publicly traded defense additive and composite suppliers trade at meaningful revenue multiples, and acquisitions of qualified tier-two aerospace suppliers by primes have historically cleared nine-figure valuations. If the hypersonics-supplier scenario plays out and Raven becomes a qualified composite TPS source on even one program of record, a strategic outcome in that range is the rough order of magnitude to consider (scenario, not a forecast). The platform-licensing scenario carries a different shape of upside, lower headcount but higher gross margin, and would more closely resemble a specialty IP business than a contract manufacturer.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Opportunity scenarios anchored to confirmed contract values, patent status, and state incentive filings; valuation framing is illustrative and not based on a disclosed Raven valuation.
Sources
PUBLIC
[Raven Space Systems] Raven Space Systems | Aerospace Composite 3D Printing | https://www.ravenspacesystems.com/
[LinkedIn] Raven Space Systems | LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/ravenspacesystems
[Startland News, Aug 2025] Emerging KC space tech startup relocating to Colorado to build autonomous factory | https://www.startlandnews.com/2025/08/raven-space-systems-colorado/
[Capital Factory] Raven Space Systems | Capital Factory | https://capitalfactory.com/startup/raven-space-systems/
[KC Source Link, Aug 2024] City Entrepreneur: Startup Raven Space Systems Is Transforming Space Travel with 3D-Printing Tech | https://www.kcsourcelink.com/2024/08/08/city-entrepreneur-startup-raven-space-systems-is-transforming-space-travel-with-3d-printing-tech/
[PitchBook] Raven Space Systems 2025 Company Profile: Valuation, Funding & Investors | https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/483822-10
[Crunchbase] Raven Space Systems - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/raven-space-systems
[Crunchbase, Nov 2024] Pre Seed Round - Raven Space Systems - 2024-11-20 | https://www.crunchbase.com/funding_round/raven-space-systems-pre-seed--3ac755f8
[Tracxn, Nov 2024] Raven Space Systems - Funding Rounds & List of Investors | https://tracxn.com/d/companies/ravenspacesystems/__jrpx9rDxhcSTSuFYyscsRjOKs3jfQ9fhkDDkiuMShIU/funding-and-investors
[CB Insights] Raven Space Systems - Products, Competitors, Financials, Employees | https://www.cbinsights.com/company/raven-space-systems
[Startland News, Dec 2024] Raven Space Systems lands Forbes 30 Under 30 honor, re-entering spotlight after funding news | https://www.startlandnews.com/2024/12/raven-space-forbes/
[Startland News, Nov 2024] Raven Space Systems pre-seed funding and AFWERX contract coverage | https://www.startlandnews.com/2024/12/raven-space-forbes/
[BizWest, Aug 2025] Raven Space Systems federal contract coverage | https://bizwest.com/
[Forbes, Dec 2024] Forbes 30 Under 30 2025 - Manufacturing & Industry | https://www.forbes.com/30-under-30/
[Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade] Raven Space Systems Chooses Colorado for New Headquarters, Bringing 392 New Jobs | https://oedit.colorado.gov/press-release/raven-space-systems-chooses-colorado-for-new-headquarters-bringing-392-new-jobs
[3D Printing Industry] Raven Space Systems MAD 3D printing coverage | https://3dprintingindustry.com/
[SpaceNews] Raven Space Systems NASA and AFRL research agreements coverage | https://spacenews.com/
[Fired Up Studios] Soaring to New Heights: How Blake Herren and Raven Space Systems are Revolutionizing Aerospace Composites | https://www.firedupstudiosfilm.com/post/soaring-to-new-heights-how-blake-herren-and-raven-space-systems-are-revolutionizingaerospace-compos
Articles about Raven Space Systems
- Raven Space Systems Is Putting a Composite 3D Printing Factory in Broomfield to Build 392 Aerospace Jobs — The Kansas City startup is relocating to Colorado's aerospace corridor on the back of $4.5M in Air Force, NASA, and NSF contracts.