Sateliot gets €30 million EIB loan to help fund LEO rollout

It has secured a €30 million loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) that will help to fund the deployment of its 100+ fleet of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, from which it will offer 5G NB-IoT connectivity in hard-to-reach locations.

Its first four satellites launched in mid-August, and these are due to become commercially operational next year. It eventually aims to connect 8 million devices and turn over €1 billion by 2030.

Once operational, the network will be pitched to terrestrial telecoms providers that want to extend the reach and capabilities of their own IoT networks to end users based in remote areas, including maritime customers.

It takes a long time and a lot of up-front investment – what with all the R&D, testing, permits and rocket fuel – to get a satellite start-up off the ground, and Sateliot is no exception.

The EIB loan comes hot on the heels of the series B funding round that Sateliot completed in September, which also raised €30 million. It was led by Madrid-based Global Portfolio Investments, which chipped in €10 million.

In January, Sateliot secured €6 million in funding from Spain's Banco Santander, just two weeks after receiving a €2.5 million loan from a state-owned outfit called Avança. Just before that, it issued a convertible note that raised another €5 million.

"This EIB backing – together with the support that Sateliot has already received from major investor groups and other banks and institutions – gives a huge boost to our development," said Sateliot CEO and co-founder Jaume Sanpera. "This capital will be used to move forward with the next stage of our constellation and comes in addition to the income we will begin to receive in 2025 when the four satellites we already have in orbit enter commercial service."

As for the EIB, the loan is backed by InvestEU, which is charged with overseeing the disbursement of more than €372 billion of public and private investment to support the European Union's policy goals for the period spanning 2021-2027.

"This loan shows the EIB's commitment to innovation and development in the European space sector, thereby supporting the digital transition and contributing to the European Union's strategic autonomy in areas of space and global connectivity in the context of the EIB Strategic European Security Initiative," said EIB vice president, Robert de Groot.

That security initiative also covers areas like reconnaissance and surveillance, spectrum protection and control, and cybersecurity, among others – anything that can be billed as keeping citizens 'safe'.

While this €30 million loan to Sateliot is the EIB's first so-called venture debt operation with a Spanish space company, it has been chucking money at space-based start-ups all over the continent.

This includes funding totalling €90 million split between satellite asset-tracking specialist Spire Global, Italian space logistics provider D-Orbit, satellite builder EnduroSat, environment monitoring provider Kayrros, and satellite operators GomSpace and LeafSpace.

With so many early-stage space start-ups looking to compete with more established players like SpaceX and Eutelsat OneWeb, it will be interesting to see how many of them have the means to survive over the long-term. Chances are, some will be swallowed by bigger fish, while others will fall by the wayside.