Official UK procurement notice
Orbex Financial Due Diligence
Authority: UK Space Agency (Central government)
What is being bought
Published requirement descriptionIn 2024 HMG provided a £20m investment as a convertible loan note to Orbex. The investment was provided to enable the company to develop their small-lift launch vehicle Prime and prepare their bid for ESA's European Launcher Challenge (ELC).
HMG wishes to update the financial due diligence given progress following that investment to understand the company's current financial health including long term viability, business, expenditure and investment plans, risks to successful completion of vehicle and service development, demonstration and reaching commercialisation.
The lotProcurement structure
single lot · no lot value publishedLot #1Awarded
Procedure terms & legal framework
From the official record- Procedure method
- Direct award
- Legal basis
- UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
- Notice status
- Awarded without competition
- Procurement threshold
- Unspecified in notice
- Regulatory regime
- Standard
- Commercial structure
- Stand-alone contract (no framework)
- Competition type
- Direct award (no call for competition)
- GPA / WTO covered
- Unspecified in notice
- Recurring procurement
- Unspecified in notice
- First published
- 29 Jul 2025, 14:19 BST
- Last source update
- 29 Jul 2025, 15:02 BST
- Authority reference
UKSAC25_0061- FTS notice number
2025/S 000-043932- Latest notice
- Contract award notice (UK6)
- Delivery area
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-056827Find a Tender
- Why no open competition
- Additional Repeat Extension Partial Replacement
- Published justification
This work is an update to previously competed work competed that was awarded to the Supplier. The scope of the work updates and the original services that were delivered part of that original work was designing an appropriate methodology a different methodology would lead to the work being incompatible with, the existing services delivered where the time and cost of working with another supplier would be disproportionate.
The supplier demonstrated their suitability for undertaking work of this nature by having been awarded the contract for the original due diligence work on a competitive basis.
How it was run
Official notice- Submission deadline
- —
Timeline
29 Jul 2025 → 8 Aug 2025 · 2 dates- Notice published29 Jul 2025, 15:02 BST
- Standstill ends8 Aug 2025, 23:59 BST
Notice history
3 events · 2 releases on Find a Tender · since 29 Jul 2025- Transparency notice published29 Jul 2025, 14:19 BSTUK5
- Contract award notice published29 Jul 2025, 15:02 BSTUK6
- Contract signature expected12 Aug 2025, 23:59 BSTscheduled
Commercial outcome & contract awards
Published awards, contracts and bid statistics, not a forecast| Awarded to | Value | Date | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP12 Aug 2025 – 31 Oct 2025 | £135,000 | 29 Jul 2025standstill to 8 Aug 2025 | Standstill |
Contracting authority & participating public bodies
Bidders & participating suppliers
1 commercial party on the notice- PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS LLPAwarded supplier
Official documents & specifications (2)
Official links; attachments are not copiedNotices published for this procedure
- Contract award notice Contract award notice on Find a Tender
- Transparency notice Transparency notice on Find a Tender