Astranis, Scout Space lay out next steps following capital rounds
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By
Ross Wilkers
Satellites and the technologies that help them safely maneuver in space feature in this summary of new venture capital activity.
Astranis
The communications satellite operator has collected $455 million in new capital to accelerate production of its spacecraft for commercial customers and pursue opportunities in the U.S. military market.
Snowpoint Ventures and Franklin Templeton co-led a Series E round that hauled in $300 million for Astranis, while the remaining $155 million comes from a delayed-draw credit facility provided by Trinity Capital. Astranis can use the facility to access funds as needed rather than all at once.
Astranis employs roughly 500 people and opened for business in 2015 to build small communications satellites for geostationary orbit. These “micro-GEO” satellites are intended to be more maneuverable than larger systems and give operators more direct control, including telecommunications firms and government agencies.
In April 2022, Astranis CEO John Gedmark said the company was aiming to have 100 satellites in active service by 2030. Astranis has launched five satellites since its inception.
With the new investment, Antaris will push to scale its production in-line with U.S. military requirements and indications that it wants both more maneuverable spacecraft and capability to expand network capacities more quickly.
Astranis is on a pair of large Space Force contracts awarded within the past 10 months: a potential $4 billion effort focused on GEO communications satellites, and a separate $1.8 billion vehicle for space domain awareness.
Other Series E participants included Andreessen Horowitz and funds managed by BlackRock, Baillie Gifford and Fidelity Management & Research Company. BAM Elevate, Nimble Partners and Friends & Family Capital also were involved.
Scout Space
This specialist in space domain awareness software has completed an $18 million Series A capital raise to support upcoming missions and work to expand manufacturing facilities, including a new 2,600-square-foot hub in Northern Virginia.
Scout Space opened for business in 2019 to develop sensors and software that help spacecraft see and understand events around them. The company is working on an orbital distributed sensor network that incorporates optical payloads, edge processing and autonomy to enable real-time awareness and responsiveness in space.
The idea behind that approach is to help satellites and other space systems detect, track and characterize objects in orbit.
With this newfound investment in place, Scout also will advance on its partnership with Blue Origin to integrate the former’s Owl sensor on the launch company’s Blue Ring payload hosting spacecraft. Scout is also seeking to expand its work with Space Force and help the service branch further advance GEO-based sensing systems.
Washington Harbour Partners led the Series A round that also included participation from the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation, Decisive Point, Fusion Fund and Noblis’ venture capital arm.
For Noblis, this continues the nonprofit science and technology firm’s work with Scout almost three years after first entering the investment via a seed round.
In an April episode of our WT 360 podcast, Noblis CEO Mile Corrigan mentioned Scout when summarizing venture investment activity since the firm started out on that in 2023.