While NordSpace is working on building a Canadian sovereign launch capability, it’s also establishing a small VC business to invest in strategic partners.
The company today launched NordSpace Ventures, which will make investments in “Canadian space, defense, and dual-use technologies”—starting with Wyvern, an EO company based in Edmonton, AB.
“This was the fastest way to have a direct interest in, and impact on, Canadian companies that are intertwined with NordSpace’s own future,” a spokesperson told Payload in an email. “We have a significant pool of technical and financial talent specific to the space industry that no other VC company we found had, and can make fast-informed decisions as a result.”
Here be dragons: Wyvern, which does EO hyperspectral imaging with its small Dragonette constellation, will get access to NordSpace’s advanced manufacturing and space systems testing facilities as part of the investment, whose amount was not disclosed.
Beaming up: While Canada is a nascent player in the commercial launch industry, at least two companies are hoping to lift off within a few years.
NordSpace plans to redo its suborbital rocket launch attempt from the new Atlantic Spaceport Complex no earlier than March or April, once the cold weather eases in Newfoundland and Labrador.
The company faced weather and technical issues while trying to launch its Taiga rocket last year. It then pushed the liftoff into 2026 to meet the requirements of Canada’s newly announced “Launch the North” defense initiative to encourage sovereign capabilities.
Startup Canadian spaceport company Maritime Launch Services ($MAXQ) also received a government senior credit facility for up to $10M CAD ($7.1M) last year partially targeted at sovereign defense needs. It has launched a couple of suborbital missions from Nova Scotia in recent years.
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“Africans don’t choose sides, at least for now…so these countries are typically not locked into one provider,” said Mustapha Iderawumi, a senior analyst at Space in Africa—a Lagos, Nigeria-based market research firm.
The space industry is well into its nine-figure funding era.
Intuitive Machines announced on Wednesday a $175M strategic equity investment led by unnamed “global institutional investors.” The money will allow the Moon-bound company, which acquired Lantaris Space Systems last month, to invest in comms and data-processing tech.
Off-World Wide Web: Specifically, Intuitive Machines plans to build a “solar system internet independent of Earth,” according to a press release. That includes growing its Near Space Network Services—a series of comms and navigation infrastructure that will be used by missions operating from Earth, to beyond the Moon. The goal? To offer connectivity all the way to Mars, and to enable energy-heavy data-processing missions.
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