Finnish satellite startup Iceye has raised €200m in new funding led by mega US investor General Catalyst, bringing its total valuation to €2.4bn, the company announced Friday.
Other investors who participated in the Series E include Denmark’s A.P. Moller Holding, France’s Bpifrance, Finnish investors Solidium, Ilmarinen, European Tech Collective, Keva, Lifeline Ventures and Tesi; the new round also includes €50m in secondaries.
Iceye cofounder and CEO Rafal Modrzewski told Sifted in September that an IPO is possible within the next 12 to 36 months but that they have not made a decision on when. Modrzewski told Bloomberg the company is profitable.
Iceye, founded in 2014, deploys microSAR satellites (synthetic-aperture radar, SAR, technology) and sells subscription services for imaging data. The company says it has launched 62 satellites to date and aims to ramp up production to average one satellite per week next year.
The scaleup has recently been leaning more heavily into defence, working with governments and defence ministries in countries like Finland and the Netherlands. It's also been partnering with defence primes like Rheinmetall and Saab. Iceye recently told Sifted the majority of its revenue now comes from defence.
The big new valuation may be due in part to Iceye’s defence branding: “The awkward truth is that if you don't go very heavy on the defence and AI investor story, then you're going to be missing out on a good 10x of your company value as of today — if your comparables are the Andurils and Palantirs and Helsings,” Pekka Laurila, cofounder of Iceye, recently told Sifted.
The new funding will go to expanding the company’s SAR constellation, sensing capabilities and data intelligence services for governments and organisations, the company said in a press release.
For Iceye’s sake, Laurila doesn’t think the defence tech hype is overblown. “If you think of the defence of Europe ... it is going to be really important. You cannot overstress that, as far as the public discourse [goes], it is underhyped,” Laurila recently said. “We should be investing more.”
