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Fortastra, an orbital defense company built for scale, led by Dr. Michael Smayda, has raised $30 million in Series A led by First In, with participation from Upfront Ventures, Space Capital, Rsquared, Side Door Ventures, ATX Ventures, among others, as well as existing investors. Fortastra will use the funding to accelerate the development of its on-orbit security platforms, expand its engineering and operations teams, and strengthen its autonomy and manufacturing capabilitie

Satylt, the above cloud service provider, led by Rama Afullo, Nelson Psenjen, and the team, has raised an $8 million seed round. The Kenyan-American engineer previously worked in Google’s cloud computing business and briefly joined SpaceX’s Starlink team in 2024, where he saw untapped potential for computing in space. He later co-founded Satlyt, headquartered in Sunnyvale and Nairobi, to build software that enables satellites to share large computing workloads. The company ha

Charter Space, the AI-native economic defense company insuring the rapidly growing space economy, led by Yuk Chi Chan and Yukun Yin, has announced the close of an oversubscribed $5 million seed round, led by Crystal Venture Partners with participation from QED, Blank Ventures, Gaingels, Hustle Fund, and other leading fintech and space investors. The round brings Charter’s total funding to $8 million, following the company’s earlier $3 million pre-seed round. The new funding f

Varda, a microgravity-enabled life sciences company that processes materials in orbit and returns them to Earth, led by Will Bruey, Delian Asparouhov, and Jon Barr, has announced a Series D fundraising round today, bringing the total amount of capital raised by the microgravity-enabled life sciences company to $598 million. The $251 million fundraise was led by Lux Capital and Natural Capital, with participation from Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Caffeinated Capital, Genera

Hubble Network, building a low earth orbit satellite network that any Bluetooth-enabled device can connect to, led by Alex Haro, Ben Wild, John Kim, has raised a $200 million Series C led by Smith Point Capital, with Seraphim, Carthona Capital, Earthshot Ventures, Y Combinator, and RPM Ventures. It brings total funding to $300 million at a $1.6 billion valuation, one year after a $70 million Series B. The Hubble satellite network enables devices with Bluetooth® LE radios to c

AstroForge, unlocking the resources of the Solar System, led by Matt Gialich, has introduced Autonomy-1: the first autonomous space mission, powered by solo. Spacecraft still rely heavily on ground teams to analyze telemetry, diagnose anomalies, make decisions, and send commands. In deep-space missions, these teams also depend on scarce and expensive ground infrastructure, while communication delays increase with distance from Earth. AstroForge says mission operations accoun

Impulse Space, developing the in-space mobility infrastructure to accelerate our future beyond Earth, led by renowned propulsion expert Tom Mueller, and the team, has announced a $308 million extension to its Series D round, bringing the combined round total to $808 million. The extension included participation from existing investors 137 Ventures, BANNER VC, DFJ Growth, Linse Capital, Lux Capital, and Valor Equity Partners, among others, reflecting continued confidence in th

EnduroSat, a space company building standardized, software-flexible satellites and a streamlined constellations-as-a-service model, led by Raycho Raychev, has raised $205 million in a round co-led by Riot Ventures and Atreides Management, with backing from the European Innovation Council, Google Ventures, Founders Fund, House Capital, Lux Capital, Omnes Capital, Giant Ventures, Emphatic Capital & Endeavor Catalyst. Scaling Serial Production. The funding will help EnduroSat ex

Open Cosmos, the European leader delivering satellite infrastructure, led by Rafel Jorda Siquier, Jordi Barrera Ars, and Aleix Megias Homar, has raised €300 million in funding as governments and enterprises accelerate investment in secure, space-based systems. The round, led by European investors, includes participation from Lightrock, ETF Partners, Institut Català de Finances (ICF), Entrepreneurs First and two major international pension funds. Other participants include Con

Galaxia, building the infrastructure layer for orbital compute, led by Arad Gharagozli and the team, has announced the successful close of its oversubscribed funding round, marking a major milestone in the company’s growth and reinforcing strong investor confidence in its vision for intelligent, sovereign space infrastructure. The 4.5 million CAD round was co-led by Amiral Ventures (QC) and Invest Nova Scotia (NS). The funding will support Galaxia’s next phase of growth, ac

Antares, building microreactors for critical missions, led by Jordan Bramble and the team, has been selected by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration for a Strategic Breakthrough award to advance nuclear power for space. It marks the largest current Department of War award in space nuclear power. “Space has been core to the Antares thesis since the company was founded,” said Jordan Bramble, CEO and co-founder of Antares.

Aerospacelab has been selected as a key Prime Contractor for the LEO segment of the European Commission's IRIS² Programme (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite). Building Europe’s Sovereign Satellite Network. Following a competitive selection process with Eutelsat, Aerospacelab has been chosen to build 264 satellite platforms and deliver the fully integrated satellites for the SpaceRISE consortium. The satellites will form the backbone of

Besxar, the exoindustrial company manufacturing advanced semiconductor materials, led by Ashley Pilipiszyn, has reported the results of Besxar Flight-1 “Mission Asimov.” On July 5, 2026, two Besxar-built “Clipper-class” canisters flew aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 first-stage booster and were recovered intact after the booster returned to land. The mission marked Besxar’s first flight carrying custom wafer cartridges, power, avionics and printed-circuit hardware designed and built

The Exploration Company, a European space company scaling globally, led by Hélène Huby, announced a $450 million Series C financing, the largest-ever Series C announced by a European space company. It also marks the largest funding round ever secured by an EU-headquartered company led by a female founder and CEO. The round is co-led by Bessemer Venture Partners, Atomico, and the Scaleup Europe Fund, managed by EQT, with participation from TEC’s existing European backers inclu

Stoke Space Technologies, Inc, the rocket company developing fully and rapidly reusable launch vehicles, led by Andy Lapsa, Tom Feldman, and the team, has announced that it has completed an initial closing of its billion-dollar Series E financing round. This funding brings Stoke’s total capital raised to $2.3 billion and will support the company as it prepares for its first orbital launch, expands production and launch capacity, and accelerates development of its larger Nova

Pixxel, the planetary infrastructure company, led by Awais Ahmed, Kshitij Khandelwal, and the team, has announced the close of its $100 million Series C funding round, co-led by Temasek and Seraphim, with participation from new investors 360 ONE Asset, IMM Investment, and existing investors Radical Ventures, growX ventures, and others. The round brings Pixxel’s total funding to $195 million. The investment also marks the single largest funding round raised by a space technolo

HyImpulse, a leading European launch services company developing and providing suborbital and orbital launch capabilities based on a proprietary propulsion technology, led by Dr. Christian Schmierer, Dr. Mario Kobald, Konstantin Tomilin, and Ulrich Fischer, has announced a Series A Extension financing of more than €50 million in equity, co-led by JOIN Capital and Ace Capital Partners, with participation from new investors, including North Ventures, BW-Capital, Bayern Kapital

Northwood, building a global ground network for the future of space communications, led by Bridgit Mendler, Griffin Cleverly, Shaurya Luthra, and the team, opened a new 185,000-square-foot headquarters and factory in Torrance, California, and expanded production of its satellite ground network. The new facility expands the company’s manufacturing footprint more than fivefold, from 25,000 to 135,000 square feet, enabling production of hundreds of antennas annually. The expans

Diffraqtion, an MIT and University of Maryland spinout building quantum camera platforms for defense and space sensing, led by Johannes Galatsanos, Christine Yi-Ting Wang, Saikat Guha, and the team, announced strategic investments from Lockheed Martin Ventures and Presidio Ventures, the venture arm of Sumitomo Corporation, bringing total funding to over $10M. Following strong investor interest, Diffraqtion elected to cap its pre-seed round, which also includes SBI US Gateway

PLD Space, an international space transportation company, led by Ezequiel Sánchez, Raúl Torres, and Raúl Verdú, has been selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) under the European Launcher Challenge (ELC), a strategic initiative aimed at strengthening Europe’s autonomous, competitive, and resilient access to space. ESA’s selection of PLD Space represents a significant endorsement of the company’s technology roadmap, execution capabilities, and role within Europe’s future