UK-based satellite manufacturer and operator Open Cosmos closed a \u20ac300 million ($348 million) Series C round on September 14, 2026, lifting its valuation above $1 billion and making it Europe\u2019s newest space unicorn. The company plans to use the capital to expand satellite production, ground infrastructure and its proprietary Earth observation and broadband constellations for commercial, government and defense customers.<\/p>\n
Lightrock and ETF Partners co-led the financing, while Claret Capital Partners provided a venture debt tranche. The size of the round gives Open Cosmos additional resources to scale both sides of its business: manufacturing and operating dedicated small satellites for customers, and building shared orbital infrastructure that can serve multiple users.<\/p>\n
Open Cosmos has developed spacecraft for civil, defense and commercial missions and operates OpenConstellation, a shared Earth observation system designed to combine sensor capacity from multiple European operators. The model is intended to increase access to frequently refreshed remote-sensing data without requiring each customer or participating organization to finance an independent constellation.<\/p>\n
The Series C proceeds will support higher satellite-production output and an expansion of the company\u2019s ground operations. Increasing manufacturing capacity will be important as Open Cosmos moves from delivering individual spacecraft and small mission batches toward deploying and replenishing larger company-operated networks.<\/p>\n
A major portion of the financing will support ConnectedCosmos, Open Cosmos\u2019 planned sovereign European Ka-band broadband constellation in low Earth orbit. The company intends to deploy initial test satellites while developing the ground infrastructure required to operate the network.<\/p>\n
ConnectedCosmos uses high-priority International Telecommunication Union spectrum filings originally assigned to Rivada Space Networks. Spectrum rights are a critical constraint for broadband constellations because operators must secure access to suitable frequencies, coordinate with other networks and meet regulatory deployment milestones to preserve their filings.<\/p>\n
The project would extend Open Cosmos beyond Earth observation into secure, high-throughput satellite communications. Ka-band systems can provide substantially greater data capacity than lower-frequency links, although they also require carefully designed ground networks and measures to manage atmospheric signal losses, particularly during heavy rainfall.<\/p>\n
Open Cosmos is positioning the network as European sovereign infrastructure for enterprise, government and defense users seeking greater control over communications capacity and space-derived data. The sovereign element reflects growing European interest in reducing dependence on non-European commercial constellations for sensitive connectivity, Earth observation and security applications.<\/p>\n
The company\u2019s broader strategy combines OpenConstellation imagery services with ConnectedCosmos communications capacity. If deployed as planned, the two systems could allow Open Cosmos to provide an integrated service covering satellite tasking, data collection, onboard or ground processing, and rapid delivery to users through a dedicated communications network.<\/p>\n
Such integration could be particularly relevant for time-sensitive applications including disaster response, infrastructure monitoring, maritime awareness and defense intelligence. Earth observation missions can generate large volumes of data, making downlink availability and delivery latency important operational constraints alongside imaging resolution and revisit frequency.<\/p>\n
Open Cosmos\u2019 next milestones will center on manufacturing and launching the first ConnectedCosmos test spacecraft, expanding its ground segment and increasing production capacity. Those steps will determine how quickly the company can translate its new financing and spectrum position into an operational European broadband network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UK-based satellite manufacturer and operator Open Cosmos closed a \u20ac300 million ($348 million) Series C round on September 14, 2026, lifting its valuation above $1 billion and making it Europe\u2019s newest space unicorn. The company plans to use the capital to expand satellite production, ground infrastructure and its proprietary Earth observation and broadband constellations for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":89700,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5874,159,244,6569,5744,250,451,408,610,1620],"class_list":["post-89699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-defense-space","tag-earth-observation","tag-europe","tag-ka-band","tag-low-earth-orbit","tag-open-cosmos","tag-satellite-communications","tag-satellite-manufacturing","tag-space-investment","tag-united-kingdom"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89699"}],"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=89699"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89701,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89699\/revisions\/89701"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}