News

JIC Venture Growth Investments (VGI) has acquired shares in Letara Ltd. (Letara), through its JIC Venture Growth Fund 2.

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Letara is a certified startup originating from Hokkaido University, engaged in the development of low-cost, mass-producible next-generation rocket engines. The hybrid rocket engine developed by Letara uses fuel such as plastic and adopts a structure in which the fuel and oxidizer are stored separately. As a result, it achieves both high safety and a simple structure compared with conventional rocket engines that rely on explosive propellants.

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The challenges of hybrid rocket engines have been the stability of fuel ignition and the achievement of thrust performance comparable to conventional systems. Letara has succeeded in solving these challenges by combining a proprietary fuel design and manufacturing technology—established by its founding members through research at Hokkaido University—with a proprietary ignition system.

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Thanks to the low-explosivity characteristics of its propellant, the hybrid rocket engine developed by Letara enables significantly faster and lower-cost development and manufacturing processes. In addition, because it uses common plastic that can be easily procured within the supply chain as fuel, it is also well suited to mass production. Owing to these advantages, the engine is expected to be applied to a wide range of uses in the aerospace field, from the launch of satellites and other spacecraft to on-orbit utilization.

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By supporting Letara’s development through this investment, VGI will help drive the social implementation of low-cost, mass-producible hybrid rocket engines and contribute to strengthening the industrial competitiveness of Japan in the aerospace field.

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^{The information contained in this notice is current at the time of publication and subject to change without notice.}