by Key Takeaways
- To build its reusable Nyx capsule, TEC, a European business, has raised $160 million.
- The financing is a combination of private investment and French and German government support.
- TEC has so far acquired $800 million in contracts with the goal of competing with SpaceX.
A French-German business called The Exploration Company (TEC) has raised $160 million in Series B funding to compete with SpaceX in the reusable spaceship market.
TEC secured over $43 million in a Series A round in February 2023, and this recent investment increases its total capital to nearly $208 million.
According to a Bloomberg story, the funding round received support from well-known venture capital companies Balderton Capital and Plural as well as government-affiliated programs like Germany’s DeepTech and Climate Fonds and France’s Tech Souveraineté.
This combination of public and private funding represents a major advancement in Europe’s efforts to support its space industry and indicates an increasing attempt to increase the continent’s autonomous space capabilities.
The Nyx capsule, TEC’s flagship project, is intended to transport people and goods to space stations. With a fully developed version anticipated by 2028, the corporation plans to launch the next edition of Nyx in 2025.
With an annual market growth of more than 10%, TEC CEO Hélène Huby emphasized the consistent increase in demand for space travel. Strong interest in the company’s offerings is demonstrated by the $800 million contracts it has already inked.
In contrast to SpaceX, which is supported by NASA, TEC is depending primarily on private investors to launch Nyx. But according to reports, the European Space Agency (ESA) is supporting the initiative.
Huby and a group of space engineers from Airbus and ArianeGroup founded TEC in July 2021, and since then, it has emerged as a major force in Europe’s space industry, where other space companies are fighting for a larger share of the now-dominant worldwide market held by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Reusable rocket technology development is also the focus of other well-known European startups in this domain, like Rocket Factory Augsburg, ArianeGroup, and Isar Aerospace.
Now that this investment round is complete, TEC is on with its plans to improve Nyx and possibly locate the next piece of equipment that would allow it to compete with Spacex in the global space market.
