Open Cosmos, a UK startup founded by three engineers from Spain, made a name for itself in 2015 when it built and launched an earth-observation satellite on a shoestring budget. Now, as countries increasingly view space as a critical domain in their national resilience profile and money is accordingly pouring into the space, Open Cosmos growing up. Today, the startup is announcing €300 million in new funding.
Its aim is to further democratise space, not just with satellites, but also analytics, AI and communications that make better sense of what gets captured.
“It’s not just enough to take a great image of a fire,” Open Cosmos’s CEO and co-founder Rafel Jorda Siquier said in an interview. “We need to understand where something emerged and deliver instructions to address it. Open Cosmos is about understanding the world and helping to solve emerging problems.”
Оpen Cosmos’s round speaks to two intertwining themes: growing investor interest and confidence in technology for the space domain; and in Europe in particular, a charged belief that space will be a critical part of how nations will secure sovereignty and national security in the years to come.
The connection between these two is resulting in some big raises.
Just last week, The Exploration Company picked up $450 million to build Europe’s answer to SpaceX. Other space tech companies in Europe raising nine-figure sums in 2026 include German rocket maker Isar Aerospace raising €270 million at a €2 billion valuation; and Finnish satellite company Iceye snapping up €1 billion at a €10 billion valuation. These are not just about building European analogues to US companies; it is also about also trying to address real bottlenecks in the industry around areas like launches.
Open Cosmos is not disclosing its valuation, but the size of the round and list of investors definitely speaks to how its filling out Europe’s space ambitions.
The funding was led by European investors, the company said, with the full list of backers including Lightrock, ETF Partners, Institut Català de Finances (ICF), Entrepreneurs First and a North American pension fund; as well as Convex, the National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF), Phoenix Court (home of LocalGlobe and Latitude) and Claret Capital Partners.
These investors see more than just a financial opportunity in backing deep tech.
“Obviously it’s not a good thing if only a few countries or companies can see or hear from above,” Saul Klein of Local Globe said in an interview. “Sovereignty and choice both matter.”
Lightrock’s participation in this round underscores how investors that are not specifically backing defence tech are nonetheless playing a huge role in financing tech that does underpin national security, since space tech presents an interesting area that may be getting increasingly used in aid of defence without directly being classified in that category.
“National resilience and secure communications, and how these interface with space, have really reached an inflection point, predominantly after Ukraine,” noted partner Ashish Puri, referencing the role that satellite communications, particularly through Starlink, have played in the conflict.
Open Cosmos had gained some important momentum ahead of raising this round.
The company says that on average, these days it is capable of manufacturing at a rate of one satellite per day across four factories, with a “100%” success rate on launches and operations. It also says that has signed more than $370 million in contracts over the last three years, and that it’s had “profitable growth” for the last five.
The plan will be to use some of the funding for R&D, but primarily it will be going into a build out of the next phase of its business.
Open Cosmos initially set out to build satellites for climate and environmental observation. This is still a part of the company’s operations, but it’s also widened what it does to meet market opportunities.
First and foremost of these is a service it calls OpenConstellation, an opportunity to sell satellite infrastructure to governments, government agencies and companies, in particular selling capacity without outright ownership of a whole satellite constellation. Prices for that work start at £500,000, it notes on its site.
Siquier describes this work as “whatever the customers ask us to do,” but more specifically it involves imaging services and analytics that underpin that.
The company is working with analytical partners across “many domains and many industries”, he said, to provide AI modelling and other tools on a constellation of around 16 satellites comprised of around 12 different satellite models.
But, it is also building out some of these analytics and services itself. To that end, in 2025 it acquired a startup out of Portugal, Connected, specialising in in IoT connectivity and management from space.
The startup is also in the process of developing ConnectedCosmos, a low-earth orbit satellite network for secure communications between two points without the use of any gateways. The first two satellites for this service are due to be launched in February of next year, Siquier said.
Notably, Open Cosmos is planning to operate in this network in Ka-band spectrum that it secured earlier this year. Although this is typically reserved for consumer internet services, ConnectedCosmos is not to be understood as a Starlink competitor providing an alternative to mobile networks, Siquier emphasised with some force, and defensiveness — not of the national security kind.
“This is critical for resilience communications, for critical infrastructure and services,” he said.
Indeed, governments across Europe have been doubling down on their space strategies and investments in recent months in order to address that very issues. Germany has said it plans to invest up to €35 billion into space initiatives by 2030.
Earlier this month, the UK unveiled a new space strategy and said it wants to commit £7.8 billion (€9.1 billion) in the same period. A satellite network will anchor the UK’s spend and its further activities around surveillance and communications.
“This landmark investment represents a major vote of confidence in Open Cosmos and Britain’s growing space sector,” Space Minister Baroness Lloyd said in a statement provided to Resilience Media. “Our new UK Space Strategy recognises the increasing importance of satellite communications in all our lives, from connectivity to defending our country, and companies like Open Cosmos are vital for advancing that infrastructure.”
Updated with commentary from the UK’s space minister.
