Firefly´s IPO run

On the 7th of August 2025, Firefly Aerospace went public with an initial offering of 45$ per share. Immediately, the price spiked over an astonishing 70$ per share, but since then most of the numbers were red. Today, we are going to look behind the numbers.

The 3 reasons why FIREFLY Aerospace had a horrible IPO run:

1. Valuation Overhang: The aggressive pricing imposed an unsustainable valuation multiple, estimated at 29 times Price-to-Sales (P/S). Furthermore, when the stock price exploded to 70$ per share, the P/S ratio rose to a ratio of over 96, creating a bubble. For comparison, the industry average P/S ratio is 3.1.  This implied that any deviation from a projected flawless growth trajectory would trigger a massive corrective sell-off (which eventually happened).    
2. Execution Risk Confirmation: The subsequent reporting of widening losses and a wide miss on quarterly revenue expectations in Q2 2025 directly contradicted the growth narrative. This financial fragility was immediately compounded by a significant operational setback: Firefly Aerospace grounded (suspended until issues have been resolved) its core Alpha rocket after the April 2025 Flight 6 anomaly, a mission failure caused by the upper stage losing its engine nozzle extension and subsequently failing to reach orbit. This has further pushed down Firefly’s Stock as it raised concerns about their core technology.
3. Structural Immaturity: The company’s path to public markets was complicated by mandatory corporate restructuring initiated in 2022. The U.S. government-mandated divestiture of the controlling stake held by Max Polyakov required intense focus on regulatory and governance requirements, likely leading to the prioritization of corporate stabilization and the IPO timeline over the necessary engineering maturity of the Alpha launch system. This structural pressure resulted in a public market entry before launch reliability was adequately proven. So in short, the company went public too early with still no perfectly finished product.

Comparative Post-IPO Performance of Space Public Listings

Sources: