{"id":114789,"date":"2025-11-18T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms.munich-startup.net\/?p=114789"},"modified":"2025-11-24T10:18:45","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T09:18:45","slug":"the-exploration-company-takes-over-thrustworks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms.munich-startup.net\/en\/114789\/the-exploration-company-takes-over-thrustworks\/","title":{"rendered":"The Exploration Company acquires Thrustworks"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>The Exploration Company acquires Thrustworks, bringing a specialist in additive manufacturing technologies into the company. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.exploration.space\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">TEC<\/a> The team is pursuing a clear strategy: strengthening the supply chain, expanding the production of high-performance drive components, and focusing on new investments in North Rhine-Westphalia. This will create additional manufacturing capacity and new skilled jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thrustworks focuses on printed refractory metals, oxidation-resistant coatings, and high-precision drive components. The company is among the first suppliers in Europe to successfully commercialize a technology for printing and coating high-performance thrust chambers from the niobium alloy C103. This technology is suitable for both civil and defense applications, thus directly contributing to TEC&#039;s strategic goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>TEC develops in-house products to support its own programs and operational requirements. The team already uses these products to fully control performance, quality, and technological differentiation. Now, the company is opening this technology to external customers, creating a new commercial opportunity. TEC is transforming internal expertise into a competitive advantage that generates growth and strengthens its innovation profile. Thrustworks supports this approach and provides the necessary level of vertical integration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Huby<\/strong>, CEO and founder of The Exploration Company, says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&quot;With this merger, we are integrating a unique niobium printing capacity and a great team within TEC and scaling it up to serve European industry. We intend to offer our customers applications ranging from satellite thrusters to engines for defense purposes.&quot;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Expansion in North Rhine-Westphalia<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Christopher Mihm<\/strong>, CEO of Thrustworks, and his co-founders <strong>Alexander Albrecht<\/strong> and <strong>Felix Thiel<\/strong> emphasize the importance of the step:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cJoining TEC is a crucial step for Thrustworks. Together, we will expand our activities in North Rhine-Westphalia and increase our additive manufacturing capabilities to strengthen Europe\u2019s resilient space supply chain.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>The Exploration Company is a space company with the goal of building accessible, sustainable, and collaborative space logistics. Founded in 2021 by H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Huby, the company now employs around 400 people at several locations. In 2024, the startup completed a <a href=\"\/en\/106016\/the-exploration-company-series-b\/\">Series B financing round<\/a> over 150 million euros.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Munich-based aerospace company The Exploration Company (TEC) has announced the acquisition of Thrustworks GmbH from M\u00f6nchengladbach. With this acquisition, TEC expands its supply chain and develops its highly specialized manufacturing for aerospace and defense applications in North Rhine-Westphalia.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":106018,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5633,1],"tags":[4979,4794,223],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Exploration Company \u00fcbernimmt Thrustworks - Munich Startup<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u00dcbernahme von Thrustworks st\u00e4rkt Fertigung und Lieferkette von The Exploration Company f\u00fcr europ\u00e4ische Raumfahrt- und Verteidigungsantriebe.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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