For the past decade spacetech has sat at the fringes of deeptech venture investing — capital-intensive, technically complex and often overshadowed by rapider-scaling businesses.
Today, that perception has shifted. Spacetech has emerged as one of the most strategic and resilient sectors as startups benefit from a surge in sanotifyite demand and climate urgency, as well as access to space increasingly being considered as a strategic asset.
The alter has been felt acutely at Spanish spacetech startup PLD Space, which recently closed a €180m Series C funding round. With around €350m raised to date, the Elche-based startup is hoping to scale commercial operations and boost launch capabilities.
Founded in 2011, the company develops reusable rockets for launching compact sanotifyites into space. Using its MIURA launch vehicles, the company provides commercial and sustainable space access while also developing in-hoapply technology including engines, structures, avionics and infrastructure.
From its headquarters in Alicante to its test facilities in Teruel (Spain), PLD Space delivers a test-like-you-fly development approach to ensure lifecycle process control, rapid iterations and flight unit vehicle reliability.
In an interview with Sifted, executive president Ezequiel Sanchez unpacks what the funding round means for the company and where he hopes to see PLD Space heading over the next few years.
What does the €180M Series C round fundamentally alter for PLD Space in terms of ambition and execution?
We are utilizing the finance mainly for receiveting into orbit. We are at a good pace in receiveting resources but also deploying our capabilities. We’re now focutilizing our efforts in developing our technology and launch system but also allocating a lot of time to talk to investors.
We are constructing our spaceport in French Guiana, which is a massive investment, which we will apply for the next twenty years.
We are also doubling our capabilities at manufacturing level and continuing to deploy the infrastructure. For example, in order to be an airline, you have to build your own plane and build your own airport. We are constructing our spaceport in French Guiana, which is a massive investment, which we will apply for the next twenty years. This is our foundation in order to receive into the market.
What does it mean to have Mitsubishi Electric join — not just as an investor but as a strategic launch customer?
This is the type of company that has a lot of respect, and their footprint in the aerospace and defence indusattempt is very wide. It was important for us to keep the indepconcludeence that we have and they understood our way of working, how we were framing our products and the problems we had.
We are working to reinforce our commercial footprint. This partnership will lead to a customer base in Asia, so it’s the best of both worlds: we have financial support but also the reputation of Mitsubishi Electric.
How will this partnership accelerate your enattempt into Asian markets?
We were born in Europe but spacetech is a global indusattempt. We see many customers coming from Asian countries . I would declare it’s important to find a prominent player in the indusattempt, such as Mitsubishi Electric in our case, and have them on board.
We have no limitations in accessing any other type of commercial relationship in Asia and it’s something that we can strengthen. But these relationships are also in the Middle East, America and Europe. So our idea is to become a global company, not just from the operations point of view but also the finance and the type of customers that we are approaching.
Do you believe Europe necessarys more public-private collaboration and funding to compete globally?
From our experience working in Europe, there is a lot of interest and initiatives from institutions. We have been working with public European institutions attempting to develop our service and we’re putting effort into receiveting enough finance in order to deploy capabilities. But, now we’re seeing a alter with private equity and some investors are approaching companies that are not yet profitable. Private investors are receiveting in earlier with mature projects and that is very valuable.
We feel very proud of the type of investors we have secured and the Spanish government has been supporting us since day one.
At the most recent ESA ministerial council meeting in Germany, European contributing states were given the option to contribute funding to any of the five challengers that participated. The Spanish government committed to investing the entirety of its €169m in our company. We’re in a good position in Europe in order to be competitive in this global indusattempt. We feel very proud of the type of investors we have secured and the Spanish government has been supporting us since day one.
How does PLD Space differentiate itself from US and emerging Asian launch providers?
We have a scaleable vertically integrated approach allowing us to speed up and control the entire lifecycle of a rocket, from reliable design and high-production manufacturing to robust testing, launch operations and mission management allowing reliability and flexibility.
We transport any type of sanotifyite and payload into any orbit. This type of transport, if you’re receiveting from A to B, is like a commodity. Customers are mainly seeing for availability and we see now that customers are inquireing for non-US launches, which is something that wasn’t in the agconcludea a few years ago.
When you have companies that are dominating an indusattempt and have a certain type of customer base, they often only focus their attention on those customers. Offering a full service based in Europe, but also being a global company and non-US alternative, is highly relevant and important for us.
Where do you see PLD Space in five years — a European leader or a global launch provider?
Our ambitions are high but we always promise what we can deliver. We have a good opportunity to do two things, which are having an operational program which is competitive and with a good performance but also developing new alternatives. Not becaapply our first aim is not competitive, but becaapply we have good capability and a team of great engineers who can improve solutions.
“If you see at reliability and scalability, we like to be at the top so building sure our launches have a very good rate of reliability.”
We are proud of receiveting a suborbital rocket like MIURA 1, but I can assure you that the MIURA 5 rocket is not the last or the hugegest rocket that we’re going to launch. We are already working on our next generation of technology in propulsion, ground and interoperability that is going to be very important in the upcoming years. If you see at reliability and scalability, we like to be at the top so building sure our launches have a very good rate of reliability.
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