BusinessStartups

Astra Space Announces Reverse Stock Split

Astra Space announced a reverse stock split on Wednesday in a last ditch effort to prevent a delisting on the stock exchange. The company’s board of directors approved the stock split of Astra’s Class A and Class B common stock, both valued at $0.0001, at a ratio of one for 15, effective immediately.  Coming back […]

StartupsVC/PE

Exclusive: Prewitt Ridge Raises $4.1M Seed Round

Prewitt Ridge has closed a $4.1M seed round, which will allow the startup to expand its go-to-market team and build new integrations for its Verve requirements management software, CEO Steven Massey told Payload.  The details: Squadra Ventures led the round, which also included participation from Stage Venture Partners, Aurelia Foundry, Wonder Ventures, Haystack, Acquia, techStars, […]

EquitiesStartupsVC/PE

Antaris Raises $3.5M In Seed Funding

Antaris is hoping to bring enterprise tech concepts to space—and now it has additional seed funding to try to make that a reality.  Antaris, a SaaS platform for space, announced Wednesday that it raised $3.5M in seed funding. Streamlined Ventures, which specializes in early-stage investments, led the round, which brings Antaris’s total funding to $10M. […]

Startups

GITAI Raises an Additional $15M of Funding

Space robotics startup GITAI announced yesterday it had raised an additional $15M of funding, bringing its total Series B extension round to $45M after securing $30M in May.  The funding for the Japan-based company—which included equity from Green Co-Invest, Pacific Bays Capital, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, and a MUFG Bank loan—will be used to expand its […]

StartupsVC/PE

Axiom Nabs $350M Series C

Axiom Space raised a $350M Series C round to support growth, the company announced yesterday. The round takes Axiom’s total funding to more than $505M, the company said in a statement. “We are building on the legacy of the International Space Station, leveraging the pillars that were constructed in low-Earth orbit more than two decades […]

LaunchStartups

For The Spaceport Company, the Water is Calling

When Tom Marotta founded The Spaceport Company last year, he knew he was entering a domain usually reserved for governments or large corporations.  “I said I think I want to go build a spaceport,” Marotta told Payload. “Which is a weird thing to say, right? “It’s like saying I want to go build a railroad […]

BusinessStartups

Epsilon3 Unveils Three New Products

Space software company Epsilon3 is rolling out a suite of three additional products to help customers better manage their missions from clean room to orbit, the company’s COO told Payload. The backstory: The CA-based startup, which was founded in 2021, builds software that aims to make the complex operations and workflows typically associated with space […]

CivilStartups

SBIR’s Ignite Program Opens With A Different Ask This Year

This year, NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research Ignite program is looking for something new.  “We want to market to firms that don’t typically do business with NASA,” engineer Quenton Bonds, who leads the SBIR Ignite program, said.  The Ignite program, a two-year-old initiative aimed at helping NASA work with small businesses, is attempting to overhaul […]

Startups

Tilebox Raises $1.7M for Satellite Data Management

Tilebox, a startup building software to host and manage raw satellite data, raised $1.7M in a pre-seed round to build out its team and expand its product offering.  “We’re really excited about the space because we see the growth,” Tilebox cofounder Laura Costa told Payload. “The software part of the data management and processing is […]

Startups

Fusion Investment Rises, Space Propulsion a Key Focus Area

The emerging fusion energy industry has attracted $6B+ in total investment, including $1.4B raised last year, the Fusion Industry Association (FIA) wrote in its annual state-of-the-market report.   Out of 40 fusion startups surveyed by the association, five companies, including Helicity Space, NearStar, Princeton Fusion Systems, and Avalanche, said space propulsion is one of their primary […]

Startups

Seattle, Denver, Austin Vie to be “Silicon Valley of Space”

Nearly 20 regional space companies gathered at Blue Origin’s headquarters in Kent, WA, on Wednesday for the Washington State Space Summit.   Against the backdrop of the state’s booming space economy, which has more than doubled since 2018, NASA chief Bill Nelson flew in to share the stage with Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Blue Origin CEO […]

StartupsTechnology

World’s First Constellation for Wildfire Monitoring

Canada is experiencing its most severe wildfire season on record, with emissions from the fires at their highest levels since satellite monitoring began in 2003. In a bid to help responders better control the spread of wildfires in the future, OroraTech, a startup founded in 2018 as a Technical University of Munich spin-off, aims to […]