A leader in distributed space infrastructure is starting off the year with a splash: Loft Orbital announced a $170M fundraising round, led by Tikehau Capital and Axial Partners, with Bpifrance, Foundation Capital, Temasek, and Uncork Capital chipping in.
That’s a huge sum of money—it would have been in the top five deals closed last year—made even more impressive because Loft finished the bulk of the Series C raise in August, when growth capital for space companies was scarce.
“The space industry was not getting much love, there were companies going out of business, so we were raising through that,” Alex Greenberg, COO and co-founder at Loft, told Payload. “Ultimately what enabled us to be successful is the traction that we have…[our first] $500 million of lifetime bookings has been done only on $160 million of capital.”
Product opportunity: Founded in 2017, Loft’s goal is “productizing” space hardware with its Hub universal payload adapter and Cockpit operations software. As well as its own business, it is part of a $100M joint venture to build satellites in the UAE.
The company has five satellites on orbit that host payloads for 25+ companies, including a dedicated platform for orbital AI experiments, YAM-6.
“The thing we were most surprised about was…how willing customers are to take a haircut on some of their requirements in exchange for getting to space really fast,” Greenberg said.
Deep horizon: Building on the profitability of YAM-6, Loft is planning a new offering by configuring its satellites to perform real-time analysis on orbit. Many satellite operators are mulling how to push computing to the edge of satellites networks, and Greenberg argues that Loft is uniquely positioned to deliver.
“We’re the ones crazy enough to fly other people’s software on our satellite,” Greenberg said, and with proven techniques to do so.
Manifesting: Loft has 30 spacecraft on its future manifest, performing a variety of missions for government, civil, and commercial customers. Here are some 2025 highlights:
- YAM-8 is scheduled to launch on Transporter-13 in early 2025, with a handful of customers on board, including hyperspectral start-up Wyvern.
- EarthDaily hired Loft to build and operate a 10-satellite constellation to collect agricultural data that will launch this year.
- SDA satellites Loft is building and operating for prime contractor BAE are also expected to head to orbit in 2025.
