Firefly Aerospace (FLY), a U.S. space and defense contractor, increased its IPO’s size to 19.3 million shares – up from 16.2 million – and priced its IPO at $45.00 – $2.00 above the top of its recently increased range of $41.00 to $43.00 – to raise $868.3 million on Wednesday night, Aug. 6, 2025. Shares of Firefly Aerospace (FLY) jumped in their NASDAQ debut – opening at $70 – up $25.00 or 55.6 percent – when they started trading at about 12:51 p.m. EDT on Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025. Volume on that opening trade was about 3.02 million shares, according to NASDAQ. A little more than an hour later, Firefly Aerospace shares held onto most of their early gain – trading at $63.07 – up $18.07 for a 40.2 percent gain from their IPO price – at around 2:07 p.m. EDT.
At the close, Firefly Aerospace’s stock was at $60.35 – up $15.35 from its IPO price for a gain of 34.1 percent on its first day of NASDAQ trading.
Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Jefferies and Wells Fargo Securities were the lead joint book-runners. Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank Securities and Cantor served as joint book-runners. Roth Capital Partners and Academy Securities acted as co-managers.
Firefly Aerospace, which makes rockets and lunar landers, had a market cap of about $6.5 billion when its IPO was priced.
Firefly’s IPO attracted huge interest.
“We like the deal – and that’s been true from Square 1,” a seasoned IPO pro said. “Getting the stock is the goal.”
The aerospace and defense sector is in play this year after the successful IPOs of Karman Holdings Inc. (KRMN) in February and Voyager Technologies, Inc. (VOYG) in June.
Firefly Aerospace – and its bankers – waited to launch the IPO until after the success of Figma (FIG) and Circle (CRCL) brought investors back to the IPO market.
Firefly Aerospace (FLY), based in the Austin, Texas, suburb of Cedar Park, is a rocket and spacecraft company that’s part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, as Barron’s pointed out in a story yesterday (Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025). The company filed its S-1 to go public a few months after its Blue Ghost mission’s successful unmanned moon landing on March 2, 2025. Firefly Aerospace launched its IPO last Monday – on July 28 – and two days later, news broke that Firefly had received a NASA contract for nearly $177 million for a mission to the moon’s South Pole.
Firefly Aerospace (FLY) plans to use the IPO proceeds to repay debt – specifically, $136.1 million outstanding under its Credit Agreement, as of March 31, 2025 – and to pay any accrued and unpaid dividends on its outstanding Series C and Series D Preferred Stock, according to the prospectus.
AE Industrial Partners, a private equity firm, is Firefly Aerospace’s biggest shareholder with about 47 percent of its stock before the IPO. After the IPO, AE Industrial Partners will control 41.8 percent of Firefly’s outstanding stock, the prospectus said. AE Industrial Partners bought its stake in Firefly Aerospace in 2022.
Firefly Aerospace (FLY) is a start-up. Firefly Aerospace was formed on Jan. 27, 2017, acquired the assets of Firefly Systems Inc. in a bankruptcy proceeding, and ultimately commenced operations on May 1, 2017, according to the prospectus.
The company is not profitable. For the 12 months that ended March 31, 2025, Firefly Aerospace reported a net loss of $238.5 million on revenue of $108.3 million,
(For more information about these companies, please check the IPO Calendar and the individual IPO Profiles found on the IPOScoop.com website.)
Note: Never trade on proposed symbols. They have been known to change and you might buy something on the OTC Bulletin Board.
To see what time the NASDAQ IPOs are expected to trade, please log in to: NASDAQTrader.com then scroll down to IPO Message.
Disclosure: Nobody on the IPOScoop.com staff has a position in any stocks mentioned above, nor do they trade or invest in IPOs. The IPOScoop.com staff does not issue advice, recommendations or opinions.
Disclaimer: A SCOOP Rating (Wall Street Consensus of Opening-day Premiums) is a general consensus taken, at press time, from Wall Street and investment professionals concerning how well an IPO might perform when it starts trading. The SCOOP Rating does not reflect the opinions of anyone associated with IPOScoop.com. The SCOOP ratings should not be taken as investment advice. The rating merely reflects the opinion of the professionals at the time of publication and the rating is subject to last-minute changes due to market conditions, changes in a specific offering and other factors, such as changes in the proposed offering terms and the shifting of investor interest in the IPO. The information offered is taken from sources we believe to be reliable, but we cannot guarantee the accuracy.