Isar Aerospace, a Germany-based low-cost satellite launch startup, completed a €15m ($16.5m) series A round on Monday that was co-led by Airbus Ventures, the investment arm of aerospace manufacturer Airbus.
Venture capital firm Earlybird co-led the round, which also featured Unternehmertum Venture Capital (UVC) Partners, Vito Ventures, Apeiron Investment Group and Bulent Altan, a former executive with spacecraft developer and launcher SpaceX.
Founded in March 2018, Isar is developing a rocket called Spectrum that will be tasked with deploying and resupplying satellite constellations. The technology relies on a propulsion architecture that is more cost-efficient than current alternatives while producing lower emissions.
The company is preparing for a first rocket launch in late 2021. It closed a multi-million-dollar seed round in September 2018 that included UVC Partners, Vito Ventures, Bulent Altan and another former SpaceX executive, David Giger.
Intergovernmental space exploration organisation European Space Agency had supplied $57,000 in seed funding for the company as of August 2018.
The original version of this article appeared on our sister site, Global University Venturing.