French optical comms manufacturer Cailabs announced a €57M ($66.9M) fundraise last week to ramp up the production capacity of its ground station tech, and expand its operations worldwide.
The funding round includes €37M ($43.4M) in financing from the European Investment Bank. The remaining €20M ($23.5) of investment comes from Definvest, Fonds Innovation Défense, NewSpace Capital, the European Innovation Council Fund, Starquest Capital, and CAIVE (Crédit Agricole Ille et Vilaine Expansion).
Demo to reno: The announcement comes just a few months after Kepler Communications demonstrated a successful space-to-ground optical relay between one of its satellites and a Cailabs optical ground station.
Since then, demand has been booming, according to Cailabs CEO Jean-François Morizur.
“We are in this position now because we know that this works,” Morizur told Payload, concerning optical relays. “Optical ground stations are here. [They] are available now…and it’s something people can rely on.”
Cailabs plans to use the new funds to capitalize on this demand. Today, Cailabs can produce 10 optical ground stations per year. It plans to quintuple this output by 2027, after developing a new production facility in France to eventually churn out 50 ground stations annually.
Cailabs expects its capacity gains to come not only with more ground station production, but also with deeper investment into its supply chain. Morizur told Payload that the company expects to purchase more components, and potentially undertake M&A opportunities to increase the vertical integration of its processes.
The world tour: At the same time, Cailabs is expanding its global footprint to meet the growing need for high-bandwidth, secure downlink capabilities from commercial companies and sovereign governments alike.
As competition for radio frequencies ramps up, Cailabs’ optical links aim to offer far superior downlink capacity—100+ Gbps—for the increasing data needs of EO companies, as well as the low-latency connectivity demands of defense sats.
Last month, Cailabs announced the opening of a new office in Virginia, and Morizur told Payload the company could expand its footprint in Japan and Korea as well.
