Cosmic Shielding Corporation

Why we invested

MARK'S STATED LOGIC We do not deeply understand the space radiation-shielding industry, and we did not pretend to. The revenue is genuinely strong for the stage and the product is a real innovation, so we backed proven traction and product over our own domain expertise. This is a deliberate exception to our usual "invest in what we know" rule.

• VERIFIED Real flight heritage, not a simulation. On-orbit since May 2023 (ISS via Axiom AX-2), an Nvidia Jetson NX flying ~2 years with an order-of-magnitude error-rate reduction. The hard gate in space hardware is cleared.
• VERIFIED Diversified real revenue with signed POs — Aethero ($2M PO), Starfish Space, Loft Orbital, Blue Origin, Intuitive Machines, Axiom. ~$2M actual revenue, growing, not single-customer air.
• VERIFIED Credible pedigree: MIT ISN origin, NASA patent transfer, tested at CERN, Oak Ridge, TRIUMF, and Loma Linda.
• CLAIMED An enabling wedge, not a point product — cheap COTS compute in space is a structural cost shift as constellations scale.
• CLAIMED Exit optionality: strategic interest (Curtiss-Wright) and term-sheet activity (Mach33) signal a pull toward acquisition.

What the company is

VERIFIED Cosmic Shielding makes radiation shielding for space electronics: a hydrogen-rich, polyethylene-based composite polymer branded Plasteel, 3D-printed into conformal shields and enclosures around commercial off-the-shelf chips (Nvidia Jetson, AMD, Intel). The tech traces to MIT's Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies and a tech-transfer of a NASA composite-shield patent. CLAIMED The pitch is roughly 15–40x mass efficiency versus aluminum, letting customers fly cheap COTS parts instead of expensive rad-hard chips — no independent benchmark sits in the bundle.

What we probed in diligence

These are the actual questions from our saved Q&A — what a sharp underwriter asks before wiring.

1. Revenue reconciliation (top priority). Three numbers landed on one call: $3.5M "booked", $865K YTD recognized, $6M target. We asked for signed POs, AR aging, and Q1 bank statements — "booked" is undefined and could be a PO, an LOI, or verbal.
2. Cap-table / dilution stack. Fully-diluted pro forma at $15M/$85M folding every convertible note, the Dec-2023 crowdfunding-note conversion, 2023 SAFEs, the Seraphim warrant, and the 99-for-1 split cleanup — with counsel sign-off.
3. IP chain of title. The MIT foreground-IP carve-out (confirmed: CSC owns output with a license carve-out) and the completeness of the Nov-2023 founder-to-company assignments, plus one lapsed patent in the docket.
4. The moat / the 15–40x claim. Independent third-party Plasteel-vs-aluminum benchmark data (missing) and a competitive-landscape memo — is 15–40x real or marketing?
5. Export control (ITAR/EAR). Remediation on shipments through German and Austrian vendors; counsel found a likely missed license exception. Is a voluntary self-disclosure filed, a compliance officer hired?
6. Corporate hygiene. A 2022 charter forfeiture and Nov-2023 revival, late stock-split cleanup, no general counsel — sloppy-but-fixable or a deeper pattern? (We judged the former.)

Bull case

• Flight-proven material with two years of on-orbit data and a real, diversified customer book. VERIFIED
• ~$2M real revenue growing off a deep-tech base that took 2020–2023 R&D to reach — the hard part is behind them. VERIFIED
• Strategic interest (Curtiss-Wright / Mach33) plus a large claimed prime pipeline gives exit optionality. CLAIMED

Bear case

• The 15–40x mass-efficiency moat has no independent benchmark in 196 sources — it could be marketing. UNVERIFIED
• Governance pattern: charter forfeiture, late split fix, late IP assignments, unremediated export controls, no GC — a founder-run, defer-compliance signal. VERIFIED
• $85M pre on under $2M revenue and a net loss is a rich ask, and the "booked" revenue framing is loose. CLAIMED

Key risks

• Manufacturing concentration: shielding runs through a single overseas vendor — a scale and supply chokepoint. CLAIMED
• Export-control tail: unremediated ITAR/EAR gates prime-contract conversion and is a closing condition for institutional money. UNVERIFIED remediation
• Revenue quality: the $3.5M "booked" must resolve to signed POs or it becomes a misrepresentation risk.
• Cap-table complexity: notes + SAFEs + warrant + split cleanup could dilute more than the headline until the pro forma is confirmed.