Space startup from Munich Isar Aerospace has raised €75 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Swiss VC firm Lakestar with the participation of existing investors Earlybird, Vsquared Ventures, Airbus Ventures, former SpaceX Vice President Bulent Altan, and new ones HV Capital, Ann-Kristin and Paul Achleitner, TechCrunch writes.
Established in 2018 by Josef Fleischmann, Markus Brandl and Daniel Metzler, Isar Aerospace is a spinoff of the Munich Technical University, where the founders studied engineering. The startup is developing a “Spectrum” satellite launcher that is significantly smaller and thus less expensive than existing on the market.
There is a huge demand on using satellite technology as additional or new data sources not only from government or communications entities but also from navigation, GPS and mapping specialists, agribusiness interest, media, internet companies, and others. But such operations are resource intensive, Metzler told TechCrunch.
The prices for a satellite launch today may vary from $30,000 to $40,000 per kg, and Isar Aerospace is aimed to reduce it to $10,000 per kg, he said. The team is also working on increasing the payload capacity of their rocket to more than 1,000 kg.
Isar Aerospace is planning to invest the fresh capital into providing further researches, as well as preparation to its first commercial launches, planned for early 2022.
