South Korean ground station operator Contec raises Series C round for global expansion

SEOUL, South Korea — Contec mentioned June 10 that it had raised 61 billion gained ($47.3 million) in a Sequence C funding spherical to pursue its objective of constructing a worldwide floor station community and working its personal Earth statement satellites. 

Together with 13.6 billion gained raised within the two earlier funding rounds, the South Korean firm has raised 74.6 billion gained ( or almost $58 million) because it was based in 2015 as a spin-off from the Korea Aerospace Analysis Institute. Contec is planning to go public subsequent yr, just lately hiring Daeshin Securities to handle the IPO.

The Sequence C spherical was led by home enterprise capital Spring Ventures, with six different establishments becoming a member of as new traders. It attracted extra funding from three present traders, Korea Funding Companions, Korean Improvement Financial institution and Atinum Funding.

“We’re planning to go public subsequent yr, with no pre-IPO funding spherical,” Contec founder and CEO Lee Sung-hee instructed SpaceNews. “To that finish, there are lots of issues we should always do with the fund raised this time.”

Lee mentioned the corporate presently operates six floor stations, together with two in South Korea (Seoul and Jeju Island) and 4 abroad in Eire, Alaska, Sweden and South Africa. Six extra can be operational in Malaysia, Australia, South Korea’s port metropolis of Busan, and Chile by the tip of November.

“We purpose at working twelve RF floor stations in 10 places world wide by the tip of the yr,” the chief govt mentioned. “We’ll construct three extra in 2023, every in Portugal, Mexico and Southeast Asia. Meaning we are going to function 15 [radio-frequency]floor stations by the tip of 2023.”

Lee mentioned the corporate may even function three optical floor stations by 2024. “The primary optical floor station can be operational in Australia by November 2023. A contract for this has already been signed,” he mentioned. “We’ll construct two extra in 2024, one within the Center East and the opposite in the USA. Whereas it’s not determined the place to place it within the U.S., there are candidates: Texas, Colorado or New Mexico.”

Contec tasks quickly rising demand for optical floor stations as extra satellites undertake laser hyperlinks as the first means for speaking with floor stations.

House situational consciousness is one other market the corporate is planning to faucet.  Lee mentioned Contec will go into SSA companies subsequent yr. To that finish, Contec will set up a cluster of 4 telescopes in an undisclosed location subsequent yr and two extra the next yr.

On high of this, Contec is planning to develop and function its personal fleet of Earth statement satellites. Lee mentioned the corporate would quickly signal a contract with a European satellite tv for pc maker to collectively develop a synthetic-aperture radar satellite tv for pc able to producing 50-centimeter-resolution imagery. 

“We’ll proceed with growth as effectively as attainable with a purpose to launch the [synthetic aperture radar] satellite tv for pc within the third or fourth quarter of 2023,” Lee mentioned. “Then we are going to develop and launch another.” 

In the meantime, Contec’s first electro-optical satellite tv for pc is ready to launch within the fourth quarter of 2023 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, in line with the chief govt. Contec contracted in 2021 with U.S. smallsat mission integrator NanoAvionics for a 16-unit cubsesat bus will carry a Contec laser communications terminal and a 1.5-meter-resolution imager provided by South Africa’s Simera Sense.