Synspective, the Japanese builder and operator of SAR satellites, became a public company yesterday, with shares opening at $4.70 and closing at $4.11, for a market cap of ~$357.3M. The company raised more than $60M from the offering.
In a filing, the company forecast $15M in revenue in 2024, and a loss of $22M, with the bulk of earnings coming from contracts and subsidies from the Japanese government. IIn June, the company raised a $44M Series C round at a $283M valuation, according to Pitchbook.
Radar love: CEO Motoyuki Arai and advisor Seiko Shirasaka founded Synspective in 2018, when it was spun out of a Japanese government research program. The company has launched five spacecraft, four of which are still operational, and it has a 10-launch deal with Rocket Lab, with the next launch expected Dec. 20.
While SAR data has a range of applications, the ability to peer through clouds and discern physical structures is most useful to the military, and the Japanese Ministry of Defense is Synsepctive’s most important customer.
Growth curve: The company expects to operate 11 spacecraft in 2026 and to push its production capacity to 12 spacecraft per year. By 2028, Synspective wants to have 30 of its StriX spacecraft in orbit.
The view from the US: Joe Morrison, who leads remote sensing for US SAR operator Umbra, said Synspective’s IPO alongside investment in other regional SAR start-ups signals that east Asian entrepreneurs see the military demand for the technology as a “generational opportunity.”
“We are excited to see Synspective’s IPO and view it as a healthy sign of the growth of the commercial SAR industry globally,” Morrison told Payload. “We think the challenges that face East Asia in the coming years will require collaboration among several SAR providers to address, and we look forward to working side-by-side with Synspective in the coming years.”
