Neuraspace raises €2.5
million to prevent satellite collisions
Neuraspace received funding from
Armilar Venture Partners to accelerate the
commercialisation of its AI-powered Space debris
monitoring & satellite collision avoidance platform
Neuraspace 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, which is incubated in
Instituto Pedro Nunes (established by the University of
Coimbra) and is also part of the European Space Agency’s
Business Incubator (ESA-BIC) initiative, is the
developer of an advanced AI-powered Space debris
monitoring & satellite collision avoidance platform,
which solves the most critical problems that legacy
solutions fail to resolve for satellite operators.
First, the company’s proprietary AI
technology enables more accurate satellite collision
risk prediction, with an already proven 22% lower false
positives.
Second, Neuraspace’s data fusion
approach, using different data types from multiple
sources, increases the robustness and resilience of its
offering.
Third, the platform automates many
of the current manual processes and communications, thus
allowing for a scalable and integrated solution to
concurrently serve multiple satellite operators.
Finally, Neuraspace delivers an
end-to-end solution, providing operators with actionable
orbital maneuver recommendations to avoid collisions,
while also delivering valuable insights to various other
stakeholders including regulators, insurers and other
Space-asset dependent businesses.
As much as it would be unthinkable
for businesses to operate without the internet, it would
be equally impossible for numerous industrial sectors to
run as they do without satellite-based data and services
- transportation, logistics, banking, insurance,
agriculture, security, etc.
The Space economy itself is poised
to grow from +$300 billion to $1 trillion, fueled by
lower cost of access to space, enabled by the
diversification of platforms and their success, and
accelerated by several well-financed operators planning
to launch tens of thousands of new satellites. In
addition to the expected exponential increase in the
number of satellites, there are an estimated 1 million
debris objects, sized between 1cm and 10cm, in Earth
orbit. The probability of satellite collisions is
already increasing dramatically and will continue to do
so, as will the consequent massive business disruption
and security risks.
Add to this the tragic recent
anti-satellite missile tests performed by some States,
and it becomes clear why Space safety, security and
sustainability has taken center stage and has become an
unquestionably urgent and critical
need to the global economy at large.
While some of these aspects are
specific to the Space sector, the disruption of
established industries by startups is not.
This is where Neuraspace comes in.
In fact, it was precisely the
similarities between the present-day Space sector’s
challenges and those of the Finance sector of more than
a decade ago, that led Nuno Sebastião, the co-founder
and CEO of Feedzai - a unicorn-status, leading company
that is fighting financial crime with its RiskOps
platform -, to establish and fund Neuraspace and to hire
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. I believe
that many of the challenges facing Space safety and
security today can be addressed by applying many of the
lessons we have learned from growing Feedzai into a
billion-dollar company in what is a rather conservative
industry, where data and automation need to scale and
operate in real-time. 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. There are two critical
factors that will make or break the New Space economy.
The first is advanced propulsion and reliable, low-cost
access to Space: this is well taken care of by both
legacy and New Space launch service providers and
companies and research entities that are today looking
to develop flexible and autonomous propulsion systems
for in-space activities. The second is safe, scalable
and sustainable, both economically and environmentally,
in-orbit operations. This is not solved at all and
remains the greatest threat to the development of both
commercial and institutional Space activities. 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 - and we are growing the team to
execute it, with the mentorship of an accomplished
entrepreneur and with the backing of a successful and
experienced investor - to provide satellite operators
the solution that will help them unlock the
extraordinary value of the New Space economy. Neuraspace
will help usher in a new era in Space, and we will do
this together with the ecosystem that we want to see
develop around us.”
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. We have known Nuno Sebastião for a long time and
his unique experience, and outstanding track record as
one of the top entrepreneurs of his generation, will be
critical to mentor Neuraspace's top-tier team to deliver
value to space operators, insurers and regulators.”
He added: “We continue seeing
amazing startups originating in Europe and addressing
global challenges, and remain committed to be a
long-term partner to the best teams.”
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