January investment activity
January 6 HawkEye 360, Inc. has received a $5 million investment from Leidos, Inc., bringing the total raised through its previously announced Series D funding round to $150 million.
January 11 Mangata Networks, Inc. has raised $33 million in its Series A funding round led by Playground Global, with participation from Scottish Enterprise, Promus Ventures and Meta Venture Partners, as well as investors KT Sat Co., Ltd. and Temasek Holdings Limited.
January 14 Infostellar Inc. received additional funding of $4.32 million from existing shareholder Mitsubishi UFJ Capital Co., Ltd. and several new investors, bringing the total funding raised in its previously announced Series B round to $10.36 million.
January 18 Satellogic Inc. (Satellogic) has received a $150 million investment from Liberty Strategic Capital (Liberty), a private equity firm founded and managed by former US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, as part of the deal company’s SPAC and related PIPE transaction, which together generated total funding of $262 million for Satellogic. With this investment, Liberty will receive 20 million shares of Class A common stock of Satellogic at $7.50 per share, as well as 5 million warrants with an exercise price of $10 per share and 15 million warrants subscription with an exercise price of $15 per share, and Mnuchin will join the company. board of directors as non-executive chairman.
January 19 Radian Aerospace, a startup working to develop an orbiting single-stage reusable spaceplane named Radian One, has raised $27.5 million in a seed funding round led by Fine Structure Ventures, with participation from EXOR, The Venture Collective, Helios Capital, SpaceFund, Gaingels, The Private Shares Fund, Explorer 1 Fund and Type One Ventures.
The SPAC trend continues in the new year
January 26 Shares of Satellogic Inc. began trading on the Nasdaq after the company completed its previously announced merger with CF Acquisition Corp. V on January 25.
January 27 D-Orbit SpA announced that it will merge with Breeze Holdings Acquisition Corp. in a deal reflecting a valuation of $1.28 billion. At the close in the second or third quarter of this year, the shares of the combined company will trade on Nasdaq.
Hughes and Bharti Announce Indian Broadband Joint Venture
On January 4, Hughes Network Systems, LLC and Bharti Airtel Ltd. have formed Hughes Communications India Pvt Ltd to provide satellite broadband services in India.
January Launch Services Completed
January 6 Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) successfully launched 49 Starlink satellites on a Falcon 9 launch vehicle and then recovered the vehicle’s first stage.
January 13 Virgin Orbit, LLC successfully launched seven cubesats for the U.S. Department of Defense, SatRevolution SA, and Spire Global, Inc. into low Earth orbit using its Cosmic Girl carrier aircraft and LauncherOne launcher.
January 13 SpaceX successfully completed the Transporter3 mission, the third in its dedicated rideshare program, putting 105 small satellites into orbit, including 44 SuperDove satellites for Planet Labs PBC, as well as satellites for Spire Global, Inc., Kepler Communications Inc., Capella Space, Iceye Oy and Umbra Space, using a Falcon 9 launch vehicle.
January 18 SpaceX successfully launched 49 more satellites for its Starlink system using the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, then recovered the vehicle’s first stage.
January Satellite and Launch Services Orders
January 12 Intelsat SA has selected Thales Alenia Space to manufacture the Intelsat 41 and Intelsat 44 satellites, each based on the Thales Space Inspire software-defined product line, for the provision of connectivity services in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
January 14 Loft Orbital Solutions Inc. (Loft Orbital) has selected Airbus Defense and Space (Airbus) to provide more than 15 satellite platforms based on the Airbus Arrow platform, which is used for the OneWeb system. In a related development, EarthDaily Analytics Corp. announced on January 18 that it had chosen Loft Orbital to manufacture, deploy and operate a constellation of 10 Earth observation satellites using the satellite platforms ordered from Airbus by Loft Orbital.
January 26 The Sultanate of Oman has announced that it has entered into a memorandum of understanding for its first deep space mission, which will feature a cubesat to be provided by SatRevolution SA and launched in 2022 by Virgin Orbit, LLC. The MoU also provides for collaboration for the deployment of small satellites in low Earth orbit.
Blue Origin to Acquire Honeybee Robotics
On January 25, Honeybee Robotics, Ltd., a developer of advanced robotic systems for space applications and other extreme environments, announced that it would be acquired by Blue Origin, LLC. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Comments are closed.