Australian satellite provider Fleet gets $33m Series C

The company described the round as heavily oversubscribed with support from Grok Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Pavilion Capital, and 1941 Fund, an Australian defence, space, and cyber vehicle set up by US-headquartered corporate advisory firm Bondi Partners. They were joined by superannuation funds Hostplus and TelstraSuper.

It values the company at about AUD 350m. This is more than double the valuation given for the Series B, which collected USD 26.4m in 2021 from Blackbird, Grok, Hostplus, Alumni Ventures, Artesian Venture Partners, In-Q-Tel, and Horizons Ventures.

About USD 11m in Series A funding was raised across 2017 and 2019 from Blackbird, Grok, Horizons, Momenta Ventures, and Earth Space Robotics.

Fleet was founded in 2015 by aerospace engineers Flavia Tata Nardini and Matthew Tetlow with an aim to develop a low-orbit communications system to support industrial sectors such as mining, agriculture, transport, logistics and energy.

Much of the business model is predicated on the emergence of low-cost rockets for commercial launches, as well as advances micro- satellite technology. Fleet launched Australia’s first commercial micro-satellites in 2018.

Fleet claims to have reached USD 28m in contracted revenues globally in the past 12 months amidst “robust” customer acquisition. In April, it signed a AUD 6.4m contract with Australia’s Defence Space Command, marking its first defence contract.

The company is also leading the Seven Sisters mission, which would involve micro-satellites and sensors orbiting the moon in search of water. That programme also features Q-Ctrl, an Australian quantum computing start-up backed by Horizons, In-Q-Tel, and Alumni.

Most importantly, Fleet has pushed hard into the mining space with a satellite-based mineral exploration system called ExoSphere, launched in March last year. ExoSphere has around 30 clients, including Rio Tinto, Barrick Gold, Core Lithium, and Gold Fields. More than 100 surveys for mineral exploration projects are either completed or in progress.

The technology, which facilitates 3D subsurface imaging with ground sensors, has been described as transformative compared to traditional exploratory drilling and refining techniques. Its commercial uptake has been interpreted as part of a corporate response to energy transition-related themes.

“We are believers that space-enabled data in exploration will allow the search for critical minerals to speed up so much that we will be able to reach humanity’s targets for net zero,” Nardini said in a statement. “With this capital, we aim to map the subsurface of Earth and find the deposits that are needed with a much lower environmental impact.”

The Series C will also be used to expand operations globally, especially in North America, and hire additional staff. There will also be investments in new product lines, an expansion of the existing micro-satellite fleet, and more R&D around the use of artificial intelligence to analyse the data collected.

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Industrials
• Technology
• Expansion
• Australia
• Blackbird Ventures
• Grok Ventures
• Alumni Ventures
• HOSTPLUS
• Telstra Super
• space
• resources