#SpaceWatchGL Venture Space – January 2024

by Connor Sattely

SpaceWatch.Global is happy to re-introduce its monthly venture capital column. Each month, we exhaustively identify all venture capital deals worldwide in space tech.

January 2024 Overview

2024 is off to a strong start for space-tech startups raising capital in the VC space, with over $530m USD (488m EUR) raised in January alone. At this pace, however, the annual space tech investment ecosystem projects to an annual $6.3b, a slight contraction versus 2023 levels of approximately $7.1b. January saw 27 deals, with an average of $19m per deal, most located in either the United States (9) or the United Kingdom (5).

Deal of the Month highlight

One such European investment of note this month was D-Orbit, who raised a whopping €100m from new investors – Japan’s Marubeni Corporation and French family office Avantgarde – along with a coalition of existing investors. D-Orbit won more than €60m in European government/space agency contracts in 2023 and successfully completed an additional seven missions of its ION orbital transfer vehicle. D-Orbit will use the Series C round to expand its offerings to include in-orbit satellite servicing and space cloud computing.

Industry size estimate

Dealroom and the European Space Agency (ESA) collaborate to run one of the industry’s most valuable assets to estimate the size of the space-tech market: the Space Tech Dashboard.

By the end of January, Dealroom identified 22 space-tech deals with a value of $363.62m (308m EUR), and three other deals which are not space-tech or are not equity funding. SpaceWatch’s estimates: 27 space-tech deals, with a value of $530m.

The differences between these estimates stem from:

• SpaceWatch.Global includes deals by Quindar, Atomic-6, D-Orbit, Piersight that are not in the Dealroom database; and Interlune which is listed in Dealroom in February;
• SpaceWatch.Global does not include deals by Taqtile and Apollo Agriculture, which are not related to space-tech. It also does not include Blue Origin’s fundraise of $18m, as the nature of their funding is an active contract for services, not investment. These deals are present in the Dealroom database.
• This article’s total includes deal-by-deal investment amounts; for some investments in Dealroom these amounts are missing.

Deals in January 2024 (by $, descending)

• D-Orbit (Italy) – space logistics and transportation – raised €100m.
• Orienspace (China) – launch services – raised RMB 600m.
• AiDash (US) – AI and satellite imagery for utilities maintenance – raised $50m.
• Vortexa (UK) – satellite data on waterborne energy trades – raised £34m.
• ABL Space Systems (US) – launch vehicle and services – raised $40m.
• Albedo (US) – ultra-high resolution satellite imagery – raised $35m.
• Latitude (France) – light launcher technology – raised €27m.
• Indigo (US) – sustainable agriculture solutions – raised $20m.
• Interlune (US) – lunar resource harvesting – raised $15.5m USD.
• Vulkam (France) –  new metal development/production – raised €14m in equity.
• Jiahe Technology (China) – AI remote sensing for agriculture – raised ¥100m.
• SynMax (US) – satellite data analytics – raised $13m.
• Aldoria (France) – situational awareness data to protect space assets – raised €10m.
• Sateliot (Spain) – 5g connectivity from space – raised €6m.
• Piersight (India) – persistent surveillance for maritime – raised $6m.
• Quindar (US) – satellite constellation automation – raised $6m.
• Wayland Additive (UK) – electron beam 3D printing metal additives – raised £4.2m
• Atomic-6 (US) – advanced composite manufacturing – raised $4.95m.
• Oxford Space Systems (UK) – satellite data analytics – raised £3m GBP.
• RocketStar (US) – propulsion engines and satellite launches – raised $2m.
• Space Products and Innovation (Italy) – modular space manufacturing – raised €1.63m.
• Volta Structural Energy (Italy) – structural battery technology. – raised €1m.
• BTRY (Switzerland) – thin-film solid-state batteries – raised CHF 900k.
• Deep Planet (UK) – regenerative farming using satellite imagery – raised £680k.
• Mobile GIS Services (MGISS) (UK) – mapping utilities using satellites – raised £600k.
• Intermap Technologies (Canada) – 3D geospatial products – raised c$885k.
• Seasy (Austria) – app for guiding sailors to ports and marinas – raised €100k*.

* exact deal amount for Seasy was undisclosed.

For more details including a description of the investment use and full list of investors, get in touch: [email protected].

Did we miss your investment? If so, get in touch and let us know. We’ll add you to our list, and continue our mission towards finding every investment in space tech across the global VC ecosystem.

 

Edited, 4 Mar 2024: Since publishing, two deals (Interlune and ABL Space Systems) which took place in January were identified and added to this article. The Blue Origin note was also added, and all relevant totals were updated.

 

Connor Sattely is an entrepreneur and startup advisor working in startup ecosystems all over the world since 2012. His monthly column for SpaceWatch.Global covers the world of venture capital in spacetech. Based in Amsterdam, he’s passionate about supporting startup founders as they grow and build their dream companies. He has launched startups in Switzerland, Uganda, and the Netherlands, and has advised founders in more than 50 countries. You can sometimes find him around Amsterdam playing the tenor saxophone with one of his bands.