China satellite developer Minospace raises $60m

Several state-backed investors participated, including Guokai Manufacturing Transformation & Upgrade Fund, Yuxiu Industrial Fund, and Donghao Lansheng Group. Additional commitments came from an innovation-focused fund under Haitong Securities and the Zero2IPO Group fund-of-funds platform.

This follows a CNY 300m pre-Series B round that closed in August 2021. It featured investors such as Gopher Asset Management, Gaoneng Capital, Lightspeed China Partners, CDH Investments, and Plum Ventures, according to AVCJ Research.

Minospace was founded in 2017 by Enyu Gao who leads a team that was previously part of the China Academy of Space Technology. It provides end-to-end satellite manufacturing services to end users focused on remote sensing, communications, and scientific experiments.

The company launched seven satellites last year, taking its total number of launches since inception to 17. It expects to reach a new record high for launches in 2023. There are currently more than 10 satellites with different technical specifications under development.

China’s space tech sector received considerable private investment in 2019 and 2020 before levelling off in 2021. However, the government has sought to reinvigorate the industry with several initiatives around satellite networking.

Satellite specialists that have received VC funding include Galaxy Space and Chang Guang Satellite Technology. The latter raised CNY 2.46 bn in pre-IPO funding in 2020 from the likes of CICC Capital and Haitong Innovation. It was described as the largest-ever funding round in China’s commercial aerospace industry.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Expansion
• Technology
• China
• Defense & aerospace
• space
• Lightspeed Venture Partners
• CDH Investments Management
• Plum Ventures