Seraphim portfolio company Iceye – the world’s leading synthetic aperture radar (SAR) smallsat constellation – has today announced a recording breaking $87m Series C funding round.
The round was led by returning investor True Ventures, with participation from other existing investors including Seraphim Capital. The heavily over-subscribed round is one of the largest Spacetech funding rounds of recent years and the largest round ever for a European Spacetech company. The round takes Iceye’s total funding to $152m.
With two thirds of the Earth covered in darkness or clouds at any given moment, much of the world can’t be imaged using traditional optical / camera-based satellites. Iceye’s satellites use radars to be able to image at night and through clouds, meaning it can monitor the entire Earth at all times / in all conditions.
Such timely and reliable information has a myriad of applications in the maritime, disaster management, insurance, and finance sectors. Given the unprecedented frequency and scale of climate driven changes in the weather, crop patterns, fires, urban living and human activities, there is a growing need for such real-time information access on a global scale.
Iceye has so far successfully launched 5 satellite missions, starting with the first ever small SAR satellite launched in January 2018. Since then, Iceye has delivered many world firsts from small SAR satellites, such as 0.25 meter resolution data and SAR video.
The company is launching 4 additional SAR satellites this year and is on course to launch an additional 8 in 2021. This will grow the existing operational constellation into a capability that is unique in the World.
“ICEYE has built a reputation of delivering on its promises for timelines and quality, while continually developing technologies that others have not been able to execute. We are very proud of that reputation, and we will continue to do our best to maintain it,” said Rafal Modrzewski, CEO and Co-founder of ICEYE. “This round of investment ensures our SAR satellite constellation size continues to grow during the 2021 schedule as planned.”
James Bruegger, Managing Partner of the Seraphim Space Fund who led the investment on behalf of Seraphim commented “we are delighted to continue to support Iceye in its quest to deliver on SAR’s potential to see where others can’t. This record-breaking round is testimony to the exceptional progress Iceye has made.”
