SpaceX, the space services provider backed by internet and technology group Alphabet, added $100m to a funding round now sized at $450m last week, showing the space sector is still attracting some big money.
Also known as Space Exploration Technologies, SpaceX develops and produces spacecraft it then launches from sites in Florida, California and Texas in order to transport cargo and personnel into space, and has introduced innovations such as reusable rockets to the process.
The additional funding was revealed through a regulatory filing that indicated the number of participants in the round was increased from 21 to 25. SpaceX has not however revealed the identity of any of the investors in the round, which reached its $350m first close in July this year.
Google, which now functions as part of the Alphabet group, joined financial services group Fidelity to invest $1bn in the company in early 2015, following about $250m in funding supplied by DFJ, Rothenberg Ventures, Valor Equity Partners, Capricorn and Founders Fund since 2002.
SpaceX is raising the funding, which regulatory filings indicate values the company at $21bn, as it prepares for the first launch of its Falcon Heavy rocket, which it claims will be the world’s most powerful operational rocket by a factor of two, in 2018.
The round is a reminder that although its members are not as numerous as some other sections of the startup space, the satellite and space technology sector is still a source for venture capital investment.
Apart from SpaceX, the industry’s most prominent companies include satellite operator OneWeb, which completed a $1.2bn round in December 2016 led by telecommunications firm SoftBank that included fellow corporates Qualcomm, Airbus, Coca-Cola, Virgin Group, Totalplay, Hughes Network Systems and Bharti Enterprises.
O3b, another satellite services provider, which counts Alphabet, satellite provider SES and conglomerate Sofina as investors, closed $460m in financing in late 2015, while Kymeta, which builds smart antenna beams for satellites, secured $73.5m in an April 2017 round featuring satellite operator Intelsat, taking its total funding to approximately $218m.
Satellite data provider Satellogic raised $27m in a Tencent-led series B round in June 2017, the month before Astroscale, a developer of space debris removal technology, received $25m in a series C round that included ANA Holdings and OSG Corporation.
The funding has not been restricted to satellite-related device manufacturers either. In the adjacent geospatial data sector, Orbital Insight completed a $50m series C round backed by Itochu and corporate venturing units GV and CME Ventures in May 2017, and Descartes Labs raised $30m in a Cargill-backed round in August.
On the fundraising side meanwhile, SES, Airbus and spaceflight services firm Telespazio were among the limited partners for the $95m space-focused fund closed by private equity firm Seraphim Capital in September this year.
The number of companies operating in the sector may still be relatively small, but the space servics industry remains a viable destination for VC funding, and will likely remain so as satellite, rocket and data technology continues to advance.
– Photo courtesy of Space Exploration Technologies Corp.