European satellite manufacturer Open Cosmos has closed a €300M ($348.6M) funding round, marking a significant shift in the continent’s venture capital landscape for scaling space infrastructure. The investment was led by European entities, signaling a move away from the region’s historical focus on early-stage innovation toward growth-stage capital.
What Happened
The funding round was led by investors on the continent, including participation from Lightrock, ETF Partners, Institut Català de Finances (ICF), and Entrepreneurs First. Open Cosmos cofounder and CEO Rafel Jorda Siquier stated in an email to Payload that the company "deliberately wanted strong European representation because we’re building strategic infrastructure in Europe," while also including investors from other regions where it made sense.
The capital will be used to expand the company’s four satellite-manufacturing facilities across Europe. This expansion aims to increase production rates to support three key services: ConnectedCosmos, a secure-communications constellation in low Earth orbit; OpenConstellation, an Earth observation constellation designed to deliver data to decision-makers within 30 minutes of imagery collection; and Data Cosmos, a system providing high-resolution satellite imagery and visualization tools. Additionally, Open Cosmos plans to grow its engineering, manufacturing, and software teams, which currently number approximately 400 people across the UK, Spain, Portugal, and Greece.
Why It Matters
This round represents a notable change in European venture capital behavior. According to a May report from the European Space Policy Institute, not a single growth-stage funding round in 2025 was led by a European private investor, highlighting a persistent gap in scale-up capital despite strong early-stage support. Siquier noted that while Europe has historically been effective at funding early-stage innovation, it has struggled to provide the capital necessary to build global technology leaders.
The Open Cosmos round follows The Exploration Company’s $450M Series C closure the previous week, which also featured European leadership in two of its three round leaders. Siquier described the recent activity as a "positive sign" that the landscape is shifting, suggesting that European investors are increasingly willing to back mature space companies seeking to scale operations and compete globally.
The Bottom Line
Open Cosmos secured €300M led by European investors to expand manufacturing and grow its workforce, signaling a broader trend of increasing growth-stage capital availability for European space infrastructure companies.