Series A Round Raises $28 Million for ClearSpace
A series A fundraising round has resulted in a $28 million infusion for ClearSpace, a Swiss-based orbital services and space debris removal company. The series A financing round will further accelerate the movement toward the sustainable use of space, the company says.
ClearSpace is ramping up operations ahead of the world’s first space debris removal mission, ClearSpace-1, scheduled to launch in 2026.
This series A financing round brings together a global team of venture capital investors, led by OTB Ventures backed by the European Investment Fund under InvestEU programme and Swisscom Ventures, with participation from the Luxembourg Future Fund, Lakestar, In-Q-Tel, Happiness Capital and 600 T Space Investments. As part of the financing, ClearSpace is establishing an operational presence in Luxembourg that will benefit from the strong space and satellite focus there.
The company recently announced a satellite life-extension collaboration with satcom operator Intelsat, building upon the technology being developed under the $119 million space debris removal mission, ClearSpace-1, secured from the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2020. ClearSpace-1, which is supported by Omega as Elite Partner, will be the first of numerous missions ClearSpace is planning for both low-Earth and geostationary orbits.
According to the company, decades of unsustainable practices have congested the near-Earth orbital regime with a plethora of dead and defunct satellites and rockets. According to ESA, there are 32,480 debris items orbiting the Earth that are tracked by space surveillance networks and more than 130 million currently untrackable objects ranging in size from 1 mm to greater than 10 cm. This space junk not only pollutes our fragile near-Earth environment, but it also represents a critical risk to active satellites that can (and have been) destroyed in high-speed collisions with such debris.
Series A Funding Round will Assist ClearSpace Achieve its Goals
"We began this company 4 years ago with the goal of making space operations sustainable and are delighted to be joined on our journey by our new partner investors," said ClearSpace Co-founders, CEO Luc Piguet and CTO Muriel Richard-Noca. "The market is now developing, much faster than we had expected, and we look forward to accelerating our activities to meet the urgent needs of space sustainability.”
"Funding new science and technology developments is crucial to growing the space sector and catalyzing further investment into the economy," said GP & Co-founder at OTB Ventures Adam Niewiński. "Private investment in space companies, especially from venture capital, has steadily broken annual records over the past decade. With the backing from our limited partners, which include the European Investment Fund (EIF), we look to invest in leaders of the new space sector, that will dominate the next phase of space operations. Tens of thousands of artificial objects are tracked in orbit around the Earth, with many times that expected to be in orbit but are too small to be tracked. ClearSpace is developing key technologies for satellite proximity and rendezvous operations in space, which is essential for the sustainable future of space.”
ClearSpace says it was founded in 2018 with the sole aim of making space operations more sustainable. The company is developing technologies and services that are needed to extend the life of active satellites, for example when they run out of fuel, and to safely remove them from orbit when they have reached their end of life. Such services are critical for maximizing the value from space-based assets, and for preventing the dangerous build-up of space debris objects.
(Source: ClearSpace news release. Images provided)