You can bundle your home and auto insurance with the click of a button, but covering your spacecraft has traditionally been a little trickier.
CA-based Charter Space is working to increase access to insurance products for companies developing new missions in space, and yesterday it announced a $5M seed round to accelerate its market traction.
Crystal Venture Partners led the round, which included participation from QED, Blank Ventures, Gaingels, Hustle Fund and others. The round brings Charter’s total financing to $8M since its founding in 2021.
In good hands: Before Charter came along, insuring spacecraft was a long and expensive undertaking, as underwriters—often without technical backgrounds—had to manually evaluate the combined risk of hundreds of subcomponents. The process kept space insurance largely out-of-reach to all but the most expensive missions—Charter CEO Yuk Chi Chan estimated earlier this year that ~97% of spacecraft in orbit are flying around uninsured.
The Charter Interplanetary Risk Corporation (CIRC)—Charter’s own insurance brokerage for space companies—has been able to shorten this underwriting process by leaning on the technical expertise it gained through its space program management tool—called Ubik—which engineers rely on to build next-gen missions. CIRC married the data from Ubik with an AI-powered underwriting tool to shorten the time it takes to secure a policy, from months to approximately two weeks. And now, the company can hardly keep up with the wave of demand.
Ultimately, Charter hopes that by making insurance more accessible to small- and medium-sized spacecraft, the market will respond by flying more missions and reaching further away from Earth.
“Strong insurance options give American space companies the confidence to invest, grow, and take on new challenges. I’m excited to see private investment supporting this important industry and helping America remain the world leader in space,” Congressman Mike Haridopolos (R-FL) said in a statement.
Like a good neighbor: Since announcing the launch of CIRC in February, the company has rapidly grown its book.
- CIRC has helped insure 50+ companies across the US space and defense ecosystem.
- The company also has a backlog of more than $35M in gross written premiums.
With the new capital, Charter will make investments aimed at making novel space insurance products easier to obtain. The company plans to grow its insurance salesforce, and increase the breadth of insurance products it can offer the industry.
CIRC already offers insurance products covering satellites before, during, and after launch, but the company plans to spread its coverage to include new and novel missions, such as nuclear powered spacecraft, in-space servicing flights, and hardware headed to the Moon.
“We need a strong, competitive insurance market that gives American innovators the confidence to take risks, grow, and lead,” Chan said in a statement. “This investment will allow us to underwrite and scale that infrastructure, encourage more capital to invest in the market, and help ensure that the future of the space economy is built here in the United States.”
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