Subject to finalisation, the Italian provider of ground segment services for satellite operators can also draw on a €15m loan from the European Investment Bank.
Launched in 2014, Leaf Space is the world’s second largest Ground Segment-as-a-Service (GSaaS) operator and currently supports around 80 satellites. In March 2023 the company reached a milestone with over 10,000 successful satellite passes.
The company said that since 2020, it has seen a three-fold year-over-year increase in core business revenue and significant growth in capacity demand. It added that its ground segment services are essential for managing satellite communications, data downlink and uplink operations for satellite operators globally.
In a statement, Jonata Puglia, Leaf Space CEO and co- founder, said: “This funding will enable us to further expand our global network of ground stations as well as add several new locations worldwide. We also plan to support new frequencies for remote sensing satellites, continue simplifying the user experience of our services, hire new talent to scale up our activities, and proactively work on new segments of the market and special projects with customers and partners.”
The round was subscribed by lead investors CDP Venture Capital Sgr (through Fondo Evoluzione) and Neva Sgr, alongside SIMEST and Digital Transition Fund, which is part of the CDP S.p.A. group. Existing shareholders RedSeed Ventures, Primo Space, and Whysol Investments all subscribed to the capital increase and contributed to the new funding round.
Giovanni Pandolfi Bortoletto, CSO & co-founder, said: “Within the next 10 years, we want to empower a future where spacecraft - regardless of their mission, application, orbit or deep space destination - are seamlessly serviceable and integrated to a plug-and-play connectivity service.
“We are progressing towards efficient, fully automated, and ubiquitous communications with satellites, which will facilitate the ongoing and sustainable expansion of the space ecosystem. In this context, Leaf Space facilitates such communications with space infrastructures through its automatic scheduler - the proprietary algorithm on which Network Cloud Engine and a distributed antenna network are based - and lays the foundation for new ones not possible yet today.”
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