Kevin Weil Joins Stoke Space Board
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- Kevin Weil joined the board of Stoke Space as a director, deepening a relationship that began when he and his wife Elizabeth invested early through their fund Scribble Ventures, around the time Stoke joined Y Combinator's winter batch.
- Stoke Space has raised $1.34 billion to date — including a $510 million Series D in 2025 — to build Nova, a rocket intended to be fully reusable that CEO Andy Lapsa said could fly this year.
- Weil departed OpenAI in April after heading the lab's scientific research acceleration efforts; he had served as OpenAI's chief product officer from June 2024 to October 2025, and previously spent three years as president of Planet Labs through its 2021 public listing.
- Stoke CEO Andy Lapsa declined to address rumors that OpenAI's Sam Altman was considering an investment in the company last year as his own SpaceX competitor, telling TechCrunch he wouldn't comment on "gossip and rumors."
- Weil also brings defense industry ties, having joined the US Army Reserve alongside three other tech executives to improve cooperation between the Army and Silicon Valley.
- Lapsa said SpaceX's recent blockbuster public market debut — much of it riding on Elon Musk's promises of operational Starship missions this year — has vindicated Stoke's full-rapid-reuse thesis, adding that "the world is realizing that launch is still not solved."
- Stoke sees orbital data centers as a longer-term opportunity, with Lapsa noting that space-based compute "really only make sense with full rapid reuse."
Why it matters: Stoke now has $1.34 billion in funding and a board member with deep Silicon Valley, defense, and AI credentials as it races to deliver Nova — the first fully reusable rocket. With SpaceX's IPO validating investor appetite for the category, military contracts and the orbital data center thesis both depend on Stoke proving the technology works this year.
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