The Exploration Company (TEC) announced Monday it has raised $160 million to fuel development of its capsule that is designed to take astronauts and cargo to space stations.

Venture capital firms Balderton Capital and Plural were the lead investors in the round which also included French government-backed investment vehicle French Tech Souveraineté and German government-backed fund DeepTech & Climate Fonds.

TEC’s core product is Nyx, a capsule that can be launched from rockets into space carrying passengers and cargo. Nyx is reusable so once it has dropped its payload, it can re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and be used for the next mission.

“It’s a big market, and it’s growing about a bit more than 10% per year because more nations want to fly their astronauts and more nations want to go to the moon,” Hélène Huby, founder and CEO of TEC, told CNBC in an interview.

“So there is an increased demand for sending people to stations, sending cargo to stations,” she said.

This part of the market has very few players. Some of the biggest are SpaceX which has a capsule called Dragon. There are also rivals from China and Russia.

“We said, ‘okay, let’s build this capacity in Europe so that Europe can have its own capsule and also the world needs an alternative solution. [We] cannot only bet on SpaceX,” Huby said.

TEC is currently developing the second version of Nyx which it expects to launch next year, followed by a final version in 2028. This model will be partly financed by the European Space Agency.

Huby said the company has signed $800 million in contracts to use its capsule. These include mission contracts with companies including Starlab, which is designing a new space station, and Axiom Space.

There is increasing activity in space among nations including China, the U.S. and India. One of the most ambitious projects is the NASA-led Gateway, which will be the first space station to orbit the moon.

“If you have more people, you also have a need for more cargo. So this is what is happening around the Earth and around the moon,” Huby said.

Huby sees TEC being a key player when it comes to developing the technology that is needed to return cargo to Earth once it has been in space.

“This is also where we where we believe our vehicle is going to play an important role,” Huby said.

Palantir shares continued their torrid run on Friday, soaring as much as 9% to a record, after the developer of software for the military announced plans to transfer its listing to the Nasdaq from the New York Stock Exchange.

The stock jumped past $64.50 in afternoon trading, lifting the company’s market cap to $147 billion. The shares are now up more than 50% since Palantir’s better-than-expected earnings report last week and have almost quadrupled in value this year.

Palantir said late Thursday that it expects to begin trading on the Nasdaq on Nov. 26, under its existing ticker symbol “PLTR.” While changing listing sites does nothing to alter a company’s fundamentals, board member Alexander Moore, a partner at venture firm 8VC, suggested in a post on X that the move could be a win for retail investors because “it will force” billions of dollars in purchases by exchange-traded funds.

“Everything we do is to reward and support our retail diamondhands following,” Moore wrote, referring to a term popularized in the crypto community for long-term believers.

Moore appears to have subsequently deleted his X account. His firm, 8VC, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last Monday after market close, Palantir reported third-quarter earnings and revenue that topped estimates and issued a fourth-quarter forecast that was also ahead of Wall Street’s expectations. CEO Alex Karp wrote in the earnings release that the company “absolutely eviscerated this quarter,” driven by demand for artificial intelligence technologies.

U.S. government revenue increased 40% from a year earlier to $320 million, while U.S. commercial revenue rose 54% to $179 million. On the earnings call, the company highlighted a five-year contract to expand its Maven technology across the U.S. military. Palantir established Maven in 2017 to provide AI tools to the Department of Defense.

The post-earnings rally coincides with the period following last week’s presidential election. Palantir is seen as a potential beneficiary given the company’s ties to the Trump camp. Co-founder and Chairman Peter Thiel was a major booster of Donald Trump’s first victorious campaign, though he had a public falling out with Trump in the ensuing years.

When asked in June about his position on the 2024 election, Thiel said, “If you hold a gun to my head I’ll vote for Trump.”

Thiel’s Palantir holdings have increased in value by about $3.2 billion since the earnings report and $2 billion since the election.

In September, S&P Global announced Palantir would join the S&P 500 stock index.

Analysts at Argus Research say the rally has pushed the stock too high given the current financials and growth projections. The analysts still have a long-term buy rating on the stock and said in a report last week that the company had a “stellar” quarter, but they downgraded their 12-month recommendation to a hold.

The stock “may be getting ahead of what the company fundamentals can support,” the analysts wrote.

WATCH: Palantir hits record as defense adopts AI tech

Super Micro Computer could be headed down a path to getting kicked off the Nasdaq as soon as Monday.

That’s the potential fate for the server company if it fails to file a viable plan for becoming compliant with Nasdaq regulations. Super Micro is late in filing its 2024 year-end report with the SEC, and has yet to replace its accounting firm. Many investors were expecting clarity from Super Micro when the company reported preliminary quarterly results last week. But they didn’t get it.

The primary component of that plan is how and when Super Micro will file its 2024 year-end report with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and why it was late. That report is something many expected would be filed alongside the company’s June fourth-quarter earnings but was not.  

The Nasdaq delisting process represents a crossroads for Super Micro, which has been one of the primary beneficiaries of the artificial intelligence boom due to its longstanding relationship with Nvidia and surging demand for the chipmaker’s graphics processing units. 

The one-time AI darling is reeling after a stretch of bad news. After Super Micro failed to file its annual report over the summer, activist short seller Hindenburg Research targeted the company in August, alleging accounting fraud and export control issues. The company’s auditor, Ernst & Young, stepped down in October, and Super Micro said last week that it was still trying to find a new one.

The stock is getting hammered. After the shares soared more than 14-fold from the end of 2022 to their peak in March of this year, they’ve since plummeted by 85%. Super Micro’s stock is now equal to where it was trading in May 2022, after falling another 11% on Thursday.

Getting delisted from the Nasdaq could be next if Super Micro doesn’t file a compliance plan by the Monday deadline or if the exchange rejects the company’s submission. Super Micro could also get an extension from the Nasdaq, giving it months to come into compliance. The company said Thursday that it would provide a plan to the Nasdaq in time. 

A spokesperson told CNBC the company “intends to take all necessary steps to achieve compliance with the Nasdaq continued listing requirements as soon as possible.”

While the delisting issue mainly affects the stock, it could also hurt Super Micro’s reputation and standing with its customers, who may prefer to simply avoid the drama and buy AI servers from rivals such as Dell or HPE.

“Given that Super Micro’s accounting concerns have become more acute since Super Micro’s quarter ended, its weakness could ultimately benefit Dell more in the coming quarter,” Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi wrote in a note this week.

A representative for the Nasdaq said the exchange doesn’t comment on the delisting process for individual companies, but the rules suggest the process could take about a year before a final decision.

Super Micro said last week that the filing delay has “had a bit of an impact to orders.” In its unaudited September quarter results reported last week, the company showed growth that was slower than Wall Street expected. It also provided light guidance.

The company said one reason for its weak results was that it hadn’t yet obtained enough supply of Nvidia’s next-generation chip, called Blackwell, raising questions about Super Micro’s relationship with its most important supplier.

“We don’t believe that Super Micro’s issues are a big deal for Nvidia, although it could move some sales around in the near term from one quarter to the next as customers direct orders toward Dell and others,” wrote Melius Research analyst Ben Reitzes in a note this week.

Super Micro’s head of corporate development, Michael Staiger, told investors on a call last week that “we’ve spoken to Nvidia and they’ve confirmed they’ve made no changes to allocations. We maintain a strong relationship with them.”