Another month, another strong showing for VC investment into space-tech: a total of $447m was invested into 21 space-tech deals in November.
The United States led the way this month, with five of six top investments by size – of particular note FireFly Aerospace’s $175m Series D round, led by new investor RPM.
Portugal’s TEKEVER and their €70m kept Europe on the board this month – Led by Baillie Gifford and the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF).
All deals in November 2024, by $ (descending)
- Firefly Aerospace (USA) – end-to-end responsive space services. – raised $175m.
- TEKEVER (Portugal) – surveillance-as-a-solution (drone+satellite) – raised €70m.
- Inversion Space (USA) – autonomous reentry vehicles – raised $44m.
- SuperAnnotate AI (USA) – pixel-accurate AI image annotation – raised $36m.
- Starfish Space (USA) – satellite servicing via autonomous vehicles. – raised $29m.
- GITAI (USA) – robotics for space development – raised $15.5m.
- Cosmoleap (China) – Medium/large reusable launch vehicles – raised CNY100m.
- Zhongke Sky Tower (China) – intelligent satellite management – raised CNY100m.
- SatVu (UK) – high-resolution thermal data – raised £10m.
- Matter Intelligence (USA) – hyperspectral sensors – raised $12m.
- Glint Solar (Netherlands) – Software tool for solar energy developers – raised $8m.
- Cordulus (Denmark) – Hyper-local weather data – raised €3m.
- Abyom (India) – reusable rocket tech and space infrastructure – raised $2.5m.
- Galaxeye (India) – multi-sensor earth observation – raised $2m.
- Atlas (Norway) – browser-based GIS and mapping – raised $2m.
- Phase Four (USA) – electric propulsion systems – raised $2m.
- MID (South Korea) – space component development – raised ₩2b.
- Matrix Geo Solutions (India) – geo-spatial solutions – raised $1m.
- Spatialise (Netherlands) – AI-driven soil monitoring – raised €350k.
Raised an undisclosed amount:
- Lunar Outpost (USA) – lunar surface mobility
- Zenno (New Zealand) – superconducting magnets for space applications
Estimating the size of the Spacetech industry
SpaceWatch.Global estimates that so far in 2024, 242 companies have raised $5.4b of venture equity funding.
- January: 27 deals, $533m
- February: 35 deals, $1.79b
- March: 12 deals, $94m
- April: 26 deals, $472m
- May: 22 deals, $270m
- June: 25 deals, $738m
- July: 31 deals, $535m
- Aug: 19 deals, $170m
- Sept: 21 deals, $334m
- Oct: 27 deals, $1.33b
- Nov: 21 deals, $447m
Benchmarking our estimate
The Dealroom/ESA Space Tech Dashboard is a great way to benchmark our estimate. Generally, the dashboard has a more expansive definition of spacetech (including, for example, terrestrial drones, ground sensors, or startups using GPS for golfing scopes).
Dealroom estimates that in November 2024, 19 space-tech companies raised a total of approx. $433m USD. As of publication, the dashboard also includes 13 additional deals, worth $227m, which we classify as either not space-tech, or not venture capital. The VentureSpace list includes two companies not listed on Dealroom’s dashboard at time of publication: Matter Intelligence, and Phase Four.
Get in touch at [email protected] and we are happy to share more about our methodology, who’s included, who’s not, and more information about each investment.
