Firefly seeks software, defense growth with $855M SciTec acquisition

Being the first private company to have a commercial lunar lander get to the Moon was one way for Firefly Aerospace to start 2025, then came its $686 million initial public offering in August.

Now Firefly is turning its attention to matters on the ground, but still with one eye toward space, through its planned $855 million acquisition of SciTec announced Sunday. Firefly is funding the transaction through a combination of $300 million in cash and $555 million in stock with expectations of completing it by the end of the year.

SciTec employs 475 people and posted $164 million in revenue for the 12-month period ended June 30. The latter figure includes contract work for federal agencies and commercial customers.

In September, SciTec captured a $272 million Space Force contract to develop software for processing raw data from sensors on missile warning satellites. Space Force set up this Other Transaction Authority agreement to focus on how systems on the ground take in data from the satellite constellations.

Firefly’s thinking behind this acquisition is to bring in a more full set of software offerings that complement what it already has in hardware, such as launch vehicles.

“To provide an analogy for this situation, Firefly's hardware is the smartphone, while SciTech's software is the apps on that smartphone,” Firefly chief executive Jason Kim said in a special investor webcast Sunday.

Kim described SciTec as a company that applies artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques into functions like data exploitation and target detection. SciTec also has worked on technologies to make cloud-native command-and-control a reality, Kim added.

Any discussion about the future of defense and space technology naturally leads to the Golden Dome, a top priority for the Trump administration to deploy a nationwide missile defense shield.

On the call, Kim advocated for Firefly as a company with many attributes it can bring to that effort.

“We can launch and deliver space-based interceptors, launch surrogate targets and hypersonic tests, and integrate data processing from a network of sensors,” Kim said. “This closes the fire control loop with an integrated network of interceptors, essentially filling the missing link for the air and missile defense shield for the U.S. homeland. In other words, SciTec is well-positioned to provide the fire control and common ground elements for Golden Dome.”

Even when considering how massive Golden Dome is, it is one facet of how Firefly sees the future landscape and where it sees SciTec as helping to create new growth avenues.

Kim said SciTec’s software applications and other offerings can also aid Firefly’s Blue Ghost missions to the Moon. Blue Ghost is the vehicle that landed on the Moon in March to mark the first success story of a soft touchdown on the lunar surface.

Firefly is eyeing an overall greater presence in space domain awareness missions, all of which have a heavy element of working with data.

“Today, data processing is done largely on the ground as spacecraft send back information that only becomes insights after returning to Earth,” Kim said. “But the future is a hybrid of ground and on-orbit data processing to provide new categories of services that improve life on Earth, and support missions to the Moon and Mars.”

Baird is acting as exclusive financial adviser to SciTec, whose legal adviser for the transaction is. Goldman Sachs is the exclusive financial adviser to Firefly, whose legal adviser on this matter is Kirkland & Ellis LLP.