Open Cosmos, a British-Portuguese satellite infrastructure company, raised 300 million euros in a funding round led by European investors, including Lightrock, ETF Partners, Institut Català de Finances, Iberis Capital, Shilling VC and Amena Ventures, as well as two unidentified international pension funds. Founded in 2014, the company is headquartered in the United Kingdom and has facilities in Portugal, Spain and Greece, employing more than 400 people.
The funds will be used to expand mass satellite manufacturing capacity and accelerate three platforms: ConnectedCosmos, for secure communications, OpenConstellation, a shared Earth observation constellation, and DataCosmos, for data processing. The company claims it can manufacture one satellite per day in its four factories in Europe, with a 100% success rate in orbit, having signed new contracts worth more than 318 million euros over the past three and a half years.
The fundraising comes in a context of growing investment by European governments in sovereign space capabilities, in a sector historically dominated by the United States. Ricardo Conde, president of the Portuguese Space Agency, stressed that Portugal has made it a priority to build its own industrial capacity in critical areas of the space economy, highlighting Open Cosmos's industrial presence in Coimbra as an example of this strategy. Founder Rafel Jorda Siquier stated that space infrastructure is becoming as critical as energy, digital networks and transport.
