VC/PE
Stories about how space companies are raising money to take on next-gen missions.
Xona Space Systems Announces ~$15M Fundraise
Xona Space Systems, a San Mateo, CA-based startup building a GPS alternative in LEO, has raised an funding round. First Spark Ventures led the round, with participation from a range of new and existing investors, including Lockheed Martin Ventures. Xona now raised $25M+ to date, putting this round somewhere around $15M based on previous fundraising…
Macro Headwinds Weigh on VC Funding
It’s been a rough start to the year for startup financing. In fact, Q2 saw the largest quarterly drop in venture funding in a decade. Higher-than-expected inflation growth, rising interest rates, and an energy crisis in Europe continue to threaten institutional capital deployment. VC-backed public listings reached a 13-year quarterly low, with eight completed this…
Analysis: Navigating Recessions
Ed. Note: This is a vastly abridged version of Payload’s “Secret Monthly Newsletter” that you can unlock by referring just one new subscriber! This month’s newsletter included access to a larger macro presentation that includes this—and much more. In less than a week, the June CPI (Consumer Price Index, an index that tracks the price…
Stellar Ventures Closes $23M Space Technology Fund
There’s a new space technology specialist fund in town. Today, Stellar Ventures announced the close of $23M in committed capital for SV Andromeda Fund LP, its first fund. Stellar Ventures may ring a bell for seasoned space hands. It sounds like Stellar Solutions, an aerospace engineering company, and that’s no coincidence. Celeste Ford started both…
Recapping the First Six Months of 2022 in Space
We’ve made it halfway through 2022. The year has flown by, but it’s been filled with big news and firsts for the space industry. Here’s our recap of the off-Earth goings-on during these last six months. Q1 The year started off with a bang as JWST unfolded successfully, reached its new home a million miles…
AstroForge Raises $13M Seed Round
AstroForge, an asteroid-mining startup and Y Combinator alum, has raised a $13M seed round led by Initialized Capital, with participation from Seven Seven Six, EarthRise, Aera VC, Liquid 2, and Soma. AstroForge 101: Cofounders Matt Gialich and Jose Acain hail from Virgin Orbit and SpaceX, where they embraced a high-risk, fail-fast Silicon Valley mindset. The…
Propulsion Startups Raise Series A
A sudden rush of capital is flowing into a sector that, until recently, seemed stagnant: independent propulsion providers. Last week, Firehawk Aerospace, Adranos, and X-Bow Systems, each horizontally integrated propulsion systems developers, announced Series A rounds totaling at least $47M. Firehawk Aerospace Last week, Firehawk announced that it had received a Series A investment from…
Synthetaic Raises $13M Series A, Led by Lupa Systems
AI startup Synthetaic has closed a $13M Series A, the Delafield, WI-based company announced this morning. Lupa Systems led the round, with TitleTown Tech, Betaworks, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Esri also participating. Synthetaic has raised $17.5M to date. AI’s “data problem” Labeled data is a must for most state-of-the-art models. In a world where scale…
Slingshot Aerospace Raises $25M Series A-1
Slingshot Aerospace, an Austin-based space situational awareness company, has raised a $25M Series A-1, co-led by Draper Associates and ATX Venture Partners. Edison Partners, Embedded Ventures, Valor Equity Partners, and Lockheed Martin Ventures also participated in the round. The company had raised a $9.6M Series A in October 2020, which brings the total Series A…
CesiumAstro Raises $60M Series B
CesiumAstro has raised a $60M Series B, the company announced this morning. Airbus Ventures and Forever Ventures co-led the round, with L3 Harris also making a strategic investment. Previous investors, including Kleiner Perkins, Lavrock Ventures, Franklin Templeton Blackhorse Fund, and HEICO, also participated in the round. CesiumAstro 101: The startup’s core product is its steerable,…
Aerospacelab Raises €40M Series B
Belgium-based geospatial analytics startup Aerospacelab announced it has raised a 40M Euro (~$45.5M) Series B co-led by Airbus Ventures and XAnge. Octave & Miroslaw Klaba, SRIW, Noshaq, BNP Paribas Private Equity, Sambrinvest, and Belaero also participated in the round. Aerospacelab 101: Founded in 2018, Aerospacelab is already no small operation, with two offices and 110+ full time employees. The business centers…
Radian Raises $27.5M Seed; Emerges from Stealth
Tired: rockets Wired: fully reusable single-stage-to orbit, horizontal-takeoff-and-landing spaceplane That, in a not-so-concise nutshell, is the driving force behind Renton, WA-based Radian Aerospace. After six years, the startup finally emerged from stealth Wednesday to announce its spaceplane ambitions and a $27.5M seed round. One part rocket science and another part going where no company has gone before, Radian…
Space Tech Investing: A 2021 Snapshot
PitchBook and NVCA have released their Q4 ’21 Venture Monitor. If there’s one thing that’s evident, it’s that VCs had plenty to be happy about last year: Deal value for US startups nearly doubled year-over-year to $330B. Public listings, SPACs, and M&A activity drove over $680B in exit value (nearly 3x the previous record). VC fundraising…
