This morning, Slingshot Aerospace, an Austin-based space situational awareness startup, announced the closing of a $40.85M Series A-2 round.
Cap table: Sway Ventures led the round, with participation from C16 Ventures, ATX Venture Partners, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Valor Equity Partners, and Draper Associates. In addition to the equity round, Slingshot received a venture loan from Horizon Technology Finance ($HRZN).
A→A2: Slingshot raised $9.6M in its first round of Series A funding in Oct. 2020, then announced a $25M Series A-1 in March of this year. For those following along at home, that puts the total Series A funding so far at $75.45M, and the company’s total fundraising at $82.85M.
All eyes on space: For Slingshot, the name of the game is space safety and sustainability. “It’s time for a digital revolution when it comes to removing that uncertainty, and reducing risk on orbit to preserve those assets that are so vital to our way of life today,” Melanie Stricklan, 21-year US Air Force veteran and CEO of Slingshot Aerospace, told Payload in March.
Slingshot’s core technology is a digital space twin, which is designed to be a complete virtualization of everything in the space domain, from huge satellites to tiny pieces of debris. On top of that digital twin technology, Slingshot has built two central products:
- Slingshot Beacon, a platform providing collision avoidance information and communication capabilities to government and commercial users
- Slingshot Laboratory, an astronautics training tool
The company also operates a global network of sensors that feed data into the digital space twin. To pad out its SSA platform, Slingshot announced in August that it had acquired Numerica’s space domain awareness (SDA) division and UK-based Seradata.
“These acquisitions bring a single, unified space intelligence platform to the market that the market needs, and hasn’t seen,” Stricklan told Payload following those acquisitions.
The fresh funds: Slingshot said that part of the A-2 round went toward financing the acquisition of the two data houses. Looking forward, the company aims to bolster its product offerings and make further inroads with its civil, commercial, and defense customer bases. Slingshot is also looking to augment its global network of sensors for even better visibility of the space domain environment.
Zoom out: Commercial SSA, “while niche today,” could grow into a $1.4B market by 2032, Deloitte projects in a recent report.
