March Investment Round-Up
March 1 Global Satellite Vu Ltd., a UK-based company with plans to deploy a thermal infrared imaging constellation, announced that it has raised a total of 20m to date following closing of a second round of its Series A investment with participation from Seraphim Space Investment Trust, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Contrarian Investors and others.
March 2 CesiumAstro Inc., a developer of high-throughput, software-based phased array communications payloads, raised $60m in a Series B investment round co-led by Airbus Ventures and Forever Ventures, with participation from L3 Harris Technologies and existing investors, bringing to $90m the total funding raised by the company to date.
March 10 Slingshot Aerospace Inc., which is developing a space simulation platform for collision avoidance, raised $25m through its Series A-1 investment round co-led by Draper Associates and ATX Venture Partners, with participation from other investors, supplementing the $9.6m in Series A funding raised by the company in October 2020.
March 15 Antenna producer Kymeta Corporation announced that it is nearly fully funded after raising an additional $84m in a new investment round led by existing investor Bill Gates, with participation from Hanwha Systems Co., Ltd. and others.
March 21 Satellite intelligence company Ursa Space Systems Inc. raised $16m in a Series C investment round led by Dorilton Ventures, with participation from existing investors, including Razor's Edge Ventures, RRE Ventures and Paladin Capital Group.
March 22 Firefly Aerospace Inc., which is planning the second launch of its Alpha launch vehicle this spring, raised $75m in a new funding round led by AE Industrial Partners.
March 28 Pixxel Space Technologies Inc., a startup developing a constellation of hyperspectral satellites for Earth imaging, raised $25m in a Series A investment round led by Radical Ventures, with participation from Jordan Noone, Seraphim Space Investment Trust, Lightspeed Partners, Blume Ventures and Sparta LLC.
March 29 Japan-based Synspective Inc., which aims to deploy a constellation of 30 synthetic aperture radar satellites to provide data analytics, raised $100m through a Series B investment round led by Sompo Japan Insurance, Nomura SPARX Investment and Pavilion Capital and bank loans, bringing to $200m its total funding raised to date.
March SPAC Activity
March 7 Tomorrow.io, a Boston-based weather-tech startup, announced the cancellation of its planned merger with Pine Technology Acquisition Corp. due to market conditions.
March 8 Israel-based ground technology developer SatixFy Communications Ltd. announced that it will merge with Endurance Acquisition Corp. in a deal expected to raise up to $350m and result in listing on the Nasdaq exchange.
March 28 Terran Orbital Corporation merged with Tailwind Two Acquisition Corp., producing $255.4m in gross proceeds, and began trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
March Launch Services Performed
March 3, 9, 19 Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) launched batches of 47, 48 and 53 Starlink satellites, each time on a Falcon 9 launch vehicle, and then recovered the vehicle's first stage, setting Falcon 9 records on the third mission for mass, at 16.25 metric tons, and reuse, with the 12th flight of the first stage.
March 15 Astra Space, Inc. (Astra) successfully launched payloads for customers of Spaceflight, Inc. (Spaceflight) on the Rocket 3.3 launch vehicle, marking Astra's first deployment of customer payloads and the first mission under a multi-launch agreement with Spaceflight announced a day earlier.
March Satellite and Launch Services Orders
March 9 AST SpaceMobile, Inc. announced a multi-launch agreement with Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) including launch of the first operational satellite for the company's BlueBird cellphone-compatible broadband constellation and a framework for future BlueBird launches.
March 21 After suspension of its launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, OneWeb Communications Ltd. announced an agreement with SpaceX to resume launch services for its LEO broadband constellation beginning with a first mission in 2022.
March 21 Hughes Network Systems, LLC announced that it selected SpaceX to launch the Jupiter-3 satellite on a Falcon Heavy launch vehicle.
March 23 Indonesia's PT Pasifik Satelit Nusantara (PSN) announced that it selected Boeing to manufacture the Nusantara Lima satellite based on the 702MP platform.
March 28 SES S.A. selected Thales Alenia Space to manufacture a third software-defined geostationary satellite, designated SES-26, based on the Inspire product line.
