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Darrell Etherington
Guest
Japanese space startup Astroscale has raised $109 million in a new Series F round of financing, bringing the company’s total funding raised to date to $300 million. The company specializes in on-orbit servicing technology, designed to help reduce the amount of debris that exists in operating orbital altitudes, and also to extend the life of existing satellites as a means of making orbital businesses more sustainable.
This new funding, led by Japan’s THE FUND and including participation from investors including Seraphim Space, brings Astroscale’s total funding to $300 million. The startup’s CEO and founder Nobu Okada said in a press release that the new funds will help them scale and “dramatically accelerate [their] ability to make on-orbit servicing routine by 2030.”
It’s been a big year for Astroscale (Okada will be joining us on stage at TC Sessions: Space 2021 this year, by the way), with a successful tech demo of its end-of-life services product in August. The company still has a second part of that mission coming up before year’s end, and it’s also progressing with its plan to demonstrate orbital debris removal for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in a mission set for early next year.
Astroscale last raised $51 million in October 2020, the same year in which it acquired Effective Space Solutions, a company focused on servicing the large geostationary satellites that provide some key communications infrastructure on Earth.
This new funding, led by Japan’s THE FUND and including participation from investors including Seraphim Space, brings Astroscale’s total funding to $300 million. The startup’s CEO and founder Nobu Okada said in a press release that the new funds will help them scale and “dramatically accelerate [their] ability to make on-orbit servicing routine by 2030.”
It’s been a big year for Astroscale (Okada will be joining us on stage at TC Sessions: Space 2021 this year, by the way), with a successful tech demo of its end-of-life services product in August. The company still has a second part of that mission coming up before year’s end, and it’s also progressing with its plan to demonstrate orbital debris removal for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in a mission set for early next year.
Astroscale last raised $51 million in October 2020, the same year in which it acquired Effective Space Solutions, a company focused on servicing the large geostationary satellites that provide some key communications infrastructure on Earth.