Argotec, an Italian smallsat manufacturer, has raised €50M ($55.8M) to ramp up how many satellites it can build each year.
NUO Space S.p.A—the space arm of the Milan-based private equity firm—led the round.
Meet Argotec: Since its founding in 2008, Argotec has already built up some flight heritage, including two microsatellites that flew with the NASA DART and Artemis I missions. The company focuses on building small sats up to 350kg.
The company is working on a couple upcoming programs, including
- Italy’s Hawk for Earth Observation (HEO) Earth imaging constellation.
- ESA’s Heliospheric Pioneer for Solar and Interplanetary Threats Defence to collect space-weather measurements.
- JAXA and ISRO’s LUPEX mission to hunt for lunar water.
Build out: The new funding is expected to help the company build 80 satellites per year, up from 52 today. It will also help fund:
- Improving edge computing and data processing on board sats;
- Expanding its AI offerings;
- Speeding up integration at its factory in Florida, which opened this year;
- Growing its telecom and RF facility in California.
What’s next: The company says this funding is just an initial down payment for fundraising a much larger round, which is already in progress.
“The closing of this initial funding round allows us to accelerate our industrial roadmap, strengthen our international market presence, and consolidate the technological leadership we have built over the years,” Argotec founder and CEO David Avino said in a statement. “This is only the first step: We are already working toward a significantly larger follow-on round to capture even more ambitious commercial opportunities.”
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