{"id":17415,"date":"2022-02-24T22:02:02","date_gmt":"2022-02-24T14:02:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/xplore-says-its-brought-in-16-2m-so-far-for-space-as-a-service-satellite-program\/"},"modified":"2022-02-24T22:02:02","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T14:02:02","slug":"xplore-says-its-brought-in-16-2m-so-far-for-space-as-a-service-satellite-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/xplore-says-its-brought-in-16-2m-so-far-for-space-as-a-service-satellite-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Xplore says it\u2019s brought in $16.2M so far for \u2018Space as a Service\u2019 satellite program"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full-width\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"630\" height=\"424\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/220224-xleo-630x424.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-678823\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/220224-xleo-630x424.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/220224-xleo-768x516.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/220224-xleo.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption>An artist\u2019s conception shows the Xplore\u2019s satellite platform in low Earth orbit. (Xplore Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In a recap of its first five years of existence, Redmond, Wash.-based Xplore reports that it\u2019s received $16.2 million in venture funding and contracts to support its satellite-based drive to offer \u201cSpace as a Service.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cXplore employs around 20 people and is actively growing,\u201d Lisa Rich, Xplore\u2019s co-founder and chief operating officer, said in emailed comments to GeekWire. \u201cThis funding will help us grow as our programs grow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s status report doesn\u2019t provide a breakdown of the funding rounds, but it does note that in addition to venture capital, the startup has brought in roughly $4 million in \u201cnon-dilutive funding\u201d over the past couple of years.<\/p>\n<p>That category of funding includes contracts from the U.S. Air Force, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The biggest contract, announced last September, is providing $2 million from National Security Innovation Capital to speed up work on Xplore\u2019s Xcraft satellite platform. NSIC is a hardware development accelerator within the Pentagon\u2019s Defense Innovation Unit.<\/p>\n<p>Xplore also provided a fresh list of its investors, including Alumni Ventures, Brightstone Venture Capital, Gaingels, Helios Capital, Kingfisher Capital, KittyHawk Ventures, Lombard Street, Private Shares Fund, Starbridge Venture Capital and Tremendous View \u2014 plus Dylan Taylor, CEO of Voyager Space, who took a suborbital space ride on Blue Origin\u2019s New Shepard spaceship in December.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Voyager Space CEO: Space travel will become commonplace\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/X-yMCg9Ygw4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\u201cA key part of Xplore\u2019s success is the support of our investors, and the trust customers have in our innovative team,\u201d Jeff Rich, Xplore\u2019s co-founder and CEO, said in the status report.<\/p>\n<p>That success hasn\u2019t yet gotten off the ground, however. Xplore, which was founded in 2017, is still gearing up for the launch of its first mission, currently set for late this year. That mission will make use of Orbital Astronautics\u2019 ORB-6 satellite platform to put hyperspectral and high-resolution video imagers into low Earth orbit.<\/p>\n<p>Erik Hammer, managing partner at Alumni Ventures, said Xplore will serve \u201ca variety of customers looking for better ways to capture imagery and data from orbit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have been impressed with their technical progress and early commercial traction,\u201d Hammer said.<\/p>\n<p>In her email, Lisa Rich declined to identify a launch provider for the first mission. But for what it\u2019s worth, Dylan Taylor has already reserved payload space on a future Xplore spacecraft. And the investment firm that Taylor heads, Voyager Space, owns a majority stake in Nanoracks \u2014 a Houston-based venture that arranges for satellite deployments from the International Space Station and other spacecraft.<\/p>\n<p>In 2020, Nanoracks and Xplore announced a partnership to create satellite rideshare opportunities for commercial deep-space missions.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An artist\u2019s conception shows the Xplore\u2019s satellite platform in low Earth orbit. (Xplore Illustration) In a recap of its first five years of existence, Redmond, Wash.-based Xplore reports that it\u2019s received $16.2 million in venture funding and contracts to support its satellite-based drive to offer \u201cSpace as a Service.\u201d \u201cXplore employs around 20 people and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[20,442,4426],"class_list":["post-17415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-satellite","tag-satellites","tag-xplore"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17415"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}