Relativity Space uses 3D printing to radically alter the rocket-manufacturing process. From its inception, the company has focused on hardware development, creating a printer that will transform the creation of Earth-circulating satellites and eventually have the capacity to self-operate on Mars. Before founding Relativity Space, Jordan Noone and Tim Ellis had both worked on 3D printing in the private space sector and knew most companies were printing less than 1 percent of their rockets. Sharing a vision of the technology as integral to the future of rocket-building, they founded Relativity Space with the plan to raise that percentage to 95. 

In the short term, the company’s initial go-to-market products are 3D-printed rockets to launch satellites around Earth. This technology transfers to their long-term goal of 3D printing the first rocket on Mars and helping to create an interplanetary society. Relativity Space disrupts the traditional rocket-manufacturing modes with a drastic increase in efficiency, offering a simplified supply chain. Traditional rockets have approximately one hundred times the number of parts as 3D-printed rockets and longer build times. Traditional rockets take up to eighteen months to build, but Relativity Space hopes to take rockets from raw material to flight in a period of sixty days. 3D-printed rockets also mean a shorter iteration cycle, as automation capabilities allow for a change of rocket design every six months. 

Relativity Space has raised $45 million to date. After cold emailing Mark Cuban, the founders received a response within five minutes that he would fund their entire seed round. They were also accepted into the accelerator Y Combinator, which led to raising an additional $10 million for Series A.