The Colorado Economic Development Commission on Thursday approved its largest single incentive awards ever, extending $35.2 million in state tax credits to a rapidly growing developer and producer of solid rocket motors and hypersonic propulsion systems, matching the description of a company called Ursa Major.

In line with the practice of cloaking the names of applicants, the award was made to Project Ladybug. The Job Growth Incentive Tax Credits are conditioned on the unnamed company creating up to 1,850 jobs at an average annual wage of $128,108 over the next eight years.

Project Ladybug is a local aerospace company with 311 employees, including 255 in Colorado, which matches the headcount of Berthoud-based Ursa Major. The company told the state it was considering expanding in Mississippi, California and Ohio, a state where Ursa Major has a manufacturing plant. It appears the company will locate its expanded headquarters in Broomfield County.

The most telling clue is that the company in question received an Advanced Industries program award of $250,000 in 2017 from the state. That matches Ursa Major to a T.

Ursa Major raised $100 million in equity and $50 million in debt commitments in a Series E round that closed on Nov. 18, and now has an estimated value of $1.5 billion to $2 billion, according to CB Insights. That would make it a “unicorn” like SpaceX, just a lot smaller. The company has also disclosed that it has secured $115 million in contracts this year from commercial and defense industry customers.

Among the jobs it expects to add are roles in human resources, legal, finance, IT, market and compliance, as well as in production and research and development. Ursa Major broke ground on a new 400-acre solid rocket motor test site in Weld County on Sept. 10. That facility will allow it to design, build and test large solid rocket motor systems more efficiently.

“This facility represents a major step forward in our ability to deliver qualified SRMs that are scalable, flexible, and ready to meet the evolving threat environment,” said Dan Jablonsky, CEO of Ursa Major, in a release. “It’s a clear demonstration of our commitment and ability to rapidly advance and expand the American-made solid rocket motor industrial base that the country needs, ensuring warfighters will have the quality and quantity of SRMs needed to meet mission demands.”

The company is also making advances in liquid engine designs for hypersonic missiles, an emerging weapons system where the U.S. lags China and Russia. Those faster missiles can evade defense systems more easily and hit their targets more quickly, which is why the Department of Defense is pushing hard to close the gap.

Ursa Major’s Hadley H13 engine has been tested at sustained Mach 5+ hypersonic speeds and the company is also developing the Draper, a storable liquid engine with hypersonic applications.

Joe Laurienti, a former engineer at Blue Origin and SpaceX, founded Ursa Major Technologies in 2015. The company has grown to be an important player in the Front Range’s push to be recognized as “Aerospace Alley” or the next Silicon Valley of defense and aerospace.

Growing aerospace and defense companies and jobs is a priority for state economic development efforts. But the state tax credits offered are only useful when companies have profits to offset them. That often isn’t the case with startups and rapidly growing companies.

To boost the value of the incentives, state legislators in 2023 approved the CHIPS Refundable Tax Credits program that allows the state to pay out up to 80% of any credits not used to offset taxes for companies in advanced industries.

The commission on Thursday approved making $8 million in credits refundable to the company from this fiscal year’s allocation of $15 million per year under the program. It also agreed to earmark another $15 million from the next round of funding.

The credits awarded, if they are all claimed, will work out to a little more than $19,000 per job created.

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