Space, energy and software coding investment rounds to note

Aalyria

Spun out of Google’s parent company in 2021, this developer of software to help manage high-speed communication networks has fetched $100 million in Series B capital to accelerate product development efforts.

Aalyria designs its flagship Spacetime platform to orchestrate and continuously optimize networks in real-time as people and assets move, plus as conditions change. The idea is to help networks respond to changes such as additions or shifts in capacity.

CEO Chris Taylor, Chief Technology Officer Brian Barritt and others founded the Aalyria business after acquiring a pair of inventions that were developed from a decade of research out of Google and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

In 2024, Aalyria was awarded a position on a $1 billion software development contract vehicle awarded by Space Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office. This contract focuses on the development of a next-generation ground system that can lean on commercial cloud computing.

Aalyria will also allocate part of the newfound investment toward work on Tightbeam, its family of laser communications terminals that are designed to provide network operators secure links through the atmosphere.

Battery Ventures and J2 Ventures led the Series B round, which also involved DYNE and other investors. Berenson & Company acted as the exclusive financial adviser to Aalyria for the Series B.

Chariot Defense

This startup focused on developing power distribution systems for military usage has collected $34 million in Series A capital after securing new contracts with agencies such as the Army and Defense Innovation Unit.

CEO Adam Warmoth started Chariot Defense in 2024 to work on building a software-defined layer that can sense, prioritize and route power across deployed systems in real time. Chariot designs its offering to help soldiers operate without interruption, detectable signature or losing capacity.

New investor Andreessen Horowitz led the Series B round with participation from other newcomers in DCVC, LMNT, Marlinspike, Overmatch, Shield Capital, Ensemble and Trenches Capital. Existing investors General Catalyst and XYZ also participated.

With this newfound capital, Chariot will push to accelerate production of its products and further develop an operating system to help operators use that very electric power control product.

Chariot’s family of Amphora hybrid power systems are designed to bring together energy storage, conversion and distribution functions.

Chariot emerged out of stealth mode in July and is moving to quickly expand its engineering team with specialists in the mechanical, electrical and software fields. The company wants to grow its expertise in high-voltage energy storage, power electronics, and distributed systems.

Code Metal

Following its $36.5 million Series A in November, this software company focused on code translation and artificial intelligence techniques has captured almost four times that amount in a Series B raise.

Code Metal will use the $125 million in new capital it collected to add engineering capacity, accelerate product development, expand commercial and government partnerships, and work to scale its go-to-market posture.

RTX’s venture arm and Shield Capital are returning GovCon investor names for the Series B round, which was led by Salesforce’s VC organization. Other participants included Accel, B Capital, Smith Point Capital, J2 Ventures and Overmatch.

Founded in 2023 by CEO Peter Morales, Code Metal’s goal is to traditional software coding methods with artificial intelligence techniques in an effort to help developers conduct safety and compliance checks on the code they work with.

The company has already secured partnerships with the Air Force, L3Harris Technologies, RTX and Toshiba with an eye toward helping those users move between programming languages and optimize software.

In conjunction with the Series B, Code Metal also announced its hire of former Tableau CEO Ryan Aytay as president and chief operating officer. Aytay also spent many years in senior roles at Salesforce before its acquisition of Tableau in 2019.

Intuitive Machines

Even publicly-traded companies can get capital boosts from others, as this space infrastructure and services company has found out through its receipt of a $175 million equity investment.

Intuitive Machines closed this round on the heels of its $800 million acquisition in January of Lanteris Space Systems, the business formerly known as Maxar Space Systems.

A bulk of the new capital will go toward revenue expansion efforts and for investing in technologies to advance communications and data processing networks, including extending Lanteris’ satellite platforms into Intuitive Machines’ key markets in government and commercial.

Other priorities for Intuitive Machines include the expansion of capacity for Near Space Network Services, a contract with NASA to facilitate data transmission for in-space communications and navigation.

The company views its opportunity set as covering the extension of capabilities around the Moon and Mars, emerging technologies in on-orbit data processing and edge computing functions, and the Golden Dome missile defense initiative.

Intuitive Machines will issue and sell Class A stock to this group of unnamed investors in exchange for the $175 million infusion.