Neuraspace raises €2.5 million to prevent satellite collisions
Neuraspace, the developer of an advanced AI-powered Space debris monitoring & satellite collision avoidance platform, announced today that it has raised €2.5 million from Armilar Venture Partners. The company will use these funds to accelerate the commercialisation of its platform.
Neuraspace’s proprietary AI technology enables more accurate satellite collision risk prediction and, by applying a data fusion strategy, offers increased robustness and resilience. The platform also automates many of the current manual processes and communications and delivers an end-to-end solution, providing operators with actionable orbital maneuver recommendations to avoid collisions, while delivering valuable insights to various other stakeholders including regulators, insurers and other Space-asset dependent businesses.
With an estimated 1 million debris objects, sized between 1cm and 10cm, in Earth orbit and an exponential growth of launched and planned constellations, satellite collision risk is already increasing dramatically and will continue to do so, as will the consequent massive business disruption and security risks.
Nuno Sebastião, the co-founder and CEO of Feedzai – a unicorn-status, leading company that is fighting financial crime with its RiskOps platform -, established and funded Neuraspace and hired an international management team to run it. Nuno Sebastião shared Neuraspace’s background and vision: “I worked at the European Space Agency (ESA) Operations Center early in my career, and kept in close contact with the Space ecosystem since then, so I know how this industry operates. Neuraspace will do for Space what Feedzai is doing for Finance: using advanced AI and a fully automated risk operations platform to provide actionable insights and manage risk.”
He added: “To execute on this vision, Neuraspace has the privilege of having Chiara Manfletti leading the team – Chiara is a former Space researcher and advisor to ESA’s Director General, having setup and served as the first President of the Portuguese Space Agency.”
Nuno also elaborated on the partnership for this round: “Armilar was the first institutional investor in Feedzai back in 2011 and has been in the Board of Directors since then, so I know by direct experience how much value Armilar adds to the teams it invests in. I couldn’t be happier to have Armilar help us take Neuraspace to the next level.”
Chiara Manfletti shared: “Having dedicated my entire career to Space, in particular to research, policy and international strategy, I have spent the past decade supporting the democratisation of Space by fostering New Space. One critical factor that will make or break the New Space economy is achieving safe, scalable and sustainable, both economically and environmentally, in-orbit operations. In fact, ESA recently defined “The Protection of Space Assets” as one of three strategic cornerstones (“accelerators”) of its vision.” She added: “Neuraspace has the technology and the right strategy to provide satellite operators the solution that will help them unlock the extraordinary value of the New Space economy”
For Armilar, this investment fits perfectly with the firm’s long-standing strategy and experience of investing in early-stage companies, led by top-tier teams, addressing massive opportunities and disrupting industries with high-performing products backed by proprietary technology.
Armilar invested in Neuraspace through its TechTransfer Fund, a Venture Capital fund that aims to invest in startups that strive to commercialize R&D outputs.
Joaquim Sérvulo Rodrigues, Partner at Armilar, said: “Until recently, and with some exceptions, Space used to be an Institutional sector, which did not attract significant Venture Capital investments. But thanks to trailblazers like SpaceX and other companies led by bold entrepreneurs, many with previous successful entrepreneurial experiences in other industries (just like Nuno Sebastião), the status quo has changed. We fully share Neuraspace’s vision to provide for a safe and sustainable Space exploration as an enabler to support businesses on Earth using satellite data, and couldn’t be happier to back the team.”
He added: “We continue seeing amazing startups originating from Europe and addressing global challenges, and remain committed to be a long-term partner to the best teams.”
The Armilar Venture Partners TechTransfer Fund is supported by InnovFin Equity, with the financial backing of the European Union under Horizon 2020 Financial Instruments and the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) set up under the Investment Plan for Europe. The purpose of EFSI is to help support financing and implementing productive investments in the European Union and to ensure increased access to financing. The fund is also co-financed by Fundo de Capital e Quase Capital (FC&QC), managed by Banco Português de Fomento, S.A.
