D-Orbit raises $110M to reach new heights in space logistics services
Logistics has become the cornerstone of how so much works on earth — we may order things online, but ultimately we need to get products and ourselves from A to B — and some believe that logistics models will be even more important in the remote realms of space. Now, a startup has landed a big round of funding to tap that opportunity. D-Orbit, an Italian startup that provides an array of logistics services for companies operating satellites and other services in space, has raised €100 million ($110 million) in a Series C round of equity funding.
The Milan-based company said another $50 million will be added to the Series C in the first half of this year. The current investment is led by strategic backer Marubeni Corporation out of Japan’s industrial sector, with Avantgarde (a regular investor in the space industry), CDP Venture Capital, Seraphim Space Investment Trust, United Ventures, Indaco Venture Partners, Neva SGR and Primo Ventures also participating. We understand that the company’s valuation is around $500 million with this round.
This investment currently stands as one of the largest raised by a space tech company in Europe and it comes on the heels of the company last year securing some €60 million in contracts from space agencies (a key customer segment, accounting for about half of its overall business today), and triple-digit revenue growth (but no disclosure of revenue numbers).
That’s also a useful turnaround for D-Orbit, which is also registered as a B Corp, after it abandoned plans last year for a public listing on Nasdaq in the midst of a dire IPO market. (That cancellation left some debt, about $20 million, on D-Orbit’s cap table, from a bond that it raised for the listing. The rest of the money it has raised has been in equity, CEO Luca Rossettini said.)
D-Orbit today provides last-mile satellite delivery and related logistics services, mission control as a service to manage already launched spacecraft and hardware, and space waste management services, all aimed at launches that are orbiting the Earth. Its work is a mix of software and hardware development.
To read the full article, visit: https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/11/d-orbit-raises-110m-to-reach-new-heights-in-space-logistics-services/
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