Finland-based synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) developer ICeye secured $136m in series D funding yesterday from investors including corporates BAE Systems, Kojima Corporation and Services Group of America (SGA).
Space technology-focused investment firm Seraphim Space led the round, which included the UK government’s National Security Strategic Investment Fund and the European Commission-sponsored European Investment Fund’s InnovFin For Equity scheme.
Molten Ventures, OTB Ventures, True Ventures, C16 Ventures, Chione, Space Capital and Promus Ventures filled out the participants. Defence systems producer BAE and foodservice group SGA invested directly while construction firm Kojima did so through Kojima Ventures.
Founded in 2015, ICeye is working on SAR technology, which uses radar to produce two or three-dimensional illustrations or landscape reconstructions.
The company’s remote sensing tool can bypass obstacles such as clouds and capture clear images for customers in diverse industries including climate services, finance, insurance, shipping and national defence.
ICeye formed an agreement with the National Reconnaissance Office, an intelligence satellite agency of the US Department of Defense, last month in a bid to help the latter assess the commercialisation of its SAR product. It has a constellation of 16 satellites and intends to launch at least 10 more this year.
The money will be used to improve ICeye’s Natural Catastrophe Insights and Solutions offering, according to co-founder and CEO Rafal Modrzewski, who told CNBC: “This financing has really been built around the further growth of the natural catastrophe product line.
“Flood monitoring is really the prime product right now, [but] we want to cover wildfire, we want to cover wind, we want to cover hail.”
The round lifted ICeye to unicorn status according to PitchBook data and brought its total funding to $304m, making it one of the most well financed space technology developers aside from spacecraft manufacturer SpaceX, which reportedly reached a $100bn valuation in late 2021.
Satellite debris removal service Astroscale closed a $109m series F round featuring insurer Axa’s Life Insurance unit in November 2021, five months after another space technology provider, Oriental Space, raised $62.6m from investors included conglomerate Legend Holdings’ Legend Star subsidiary and heavy equipment manufacturer Sanyi Heavy Industry.
Seraphim Space had already provided $25m in funding for ICeye last month having participated in an $87m series C round in 2020 led by True Ventures and also backed by investors including New Space Capital and Luxembourg Future Fund.
OTB Ventures, Finnish Industry Investment (Tesi), Draper Esprit, DNX Ventures (formerly Draper Nexus), Draper Associates, Promus Ventures and Space Angels had also chipped into the series C funding, which took ICeye’s overall funding to $152m, after all had contributed to a $34m series B round in 2018 led by True Ventures.
Seraphim Capital had led a $1.2m round for the company in September 2017, the month after it received $8.5m in a round led by Draper Nexus and backed by Space Angels, Draper Associates, the Finnish state-owned Tekes and existing investors True Ventures and Lifeline Ventures to take its total funding to $13m.
Image courtesy of ICeye Oy.
