European space startups have raised $3.9bn in 2026, an all-time high
Four rounds of $50m or more in one month: The Exploration Company $450m, Open Cosmos $346m, EnduroSat $205m and HyImpulse $55m. With ICEYE’s $1.1bn in August, that is 53% past the 2021 record of $2.5bn, with three months of the year still to run.
By Boris Bavinck, Orla Browne and Dealroom Next-Gen API · In 2020, European space startups raised $486m of venture capital across the whole year. In September 2026 they raised $1.07bn, $1.06bn of it in four rounds of $50m or more. The Exploration Company closed a $450m Series C led by Bessemer, Atomico and EQT at a $1.8bn valuation. Open Cosmos raised $346m at $2bn, led by ETF Partners and Lightrock. EnduroSat $205m and HyImpulse $55m made up the rest of those.
The month follows the largest round any European space company has raised apart from Eutelsat OneWeb: ICEYE’s $1.1bn Series F in August, led by EQT and General Atlantic. Together they take European space VC to $3.9bn for 2026 so far, ahead of the $2.5bn raised in 2021, the previous record year.
VC raised by European space startups
USD · 2026 to 22 September. Hatched: Eutelsat OneWeb.
The 2026 rounds
- September 2026$1.07bn
$450mSeptember
$346mSeptember- EnduroSat$205mSeptember
$55mSeptember- Hydrosat$10mSeptember
- January to August 2026$2.80bn
$1.1bnAugust
$297mJune
$317mMarch- 65 other rounds$1.09bnJanuary to August
The September rounds
Four European space companies raised $50m or more, $1.06bn between them.
Europe’s biggest space rounds
Rounds of $100m or more, all time. Excludes Eutelsat OneWeb’s 8 rounds, $4.87bn between 2015 and 2021.
- 🇫🇮$1.1bnAug 2026
- The Exploration Company🇩🇪$450mSep 2026
- 🇬🇧$346mSep 2026
- 🇪🇸$317mMar 2026
- 🇩🇪$297mJun 2026
- EnduroSat🇧🇬$205mSep 2026
- 🇫🇮$165mDec 2025
- 🇩🇪$165mJun 2025
- The Exploration Company🇩🇪$165mNov 2024
- 🇩🇪$165mMar 2023
- 🇫🇮$136mFeb 2022
- EOS-X SPACESHIP COMPANY🇪🇸$132mMay 2026
🇪🇸$130mApr 2026
🇩🇪$130mApr 2022
🇪🇸$110mApr 2026- D-Orbit🇮🇹$110mNov 2023
🇫🇷$110mFeb 2020- EnduroSat🇧🇬$104mOct 2025
Every 2026 round on the map
Circle area is round size. Finland, Germany and Spain are $2.8bn of the $3.9bn plotted.
Bigger tickets, not just more of them
The median European space round was $1.1m in 2020. In 2026 it is $10m, 9 times higher. Part of that is reporting lag: small rounds reach the database months after they close, so the 2026 round count of 73 will rise and the median will come down. The direction holds either way. Six European space companies have raised $200m or more this year; in 2020 none did.
Six of the eight largest rounds went to hardware rather than data or software: ICEYE’s radar satellites, the Isar Aerospace and PLD Space rockets, The Exploration Company’s reusable capsule, Open Cosmos’s and EnduroSat’s satellites. Europe is now funding the hardware layer of its space industry at venture scale.
Some of it has started to fly. On 5 September Isar Aerospace reached orbit with its Spectrum rocket from Andøya in Norway, the first European company to do so with its own vehicle; its first attempt, in March 2025, failed shortly after liftoff. Isar raised $297m in June, three months before the flight. PLD Space and HyImpulse have not yet flown an orbital rocket.
22 rounds of $100m or more since 2021
507 rounds with a disclosed size.
- Under $5m291
- $5–25m136
- $25–50m43
- $50–100m15
- $100m+22
What counts as space here
The chart counts VC rounds by companies in Dealroom’s Space industry with a European headquarters. Drone and defence companies such as Quantum Systems and TEKEVER sit in the broader space tech sector and are not included; with them, the 2026 total would be higher still. Grants, debt and public-market deals are excluded throughout. Eutelsat OneWeb is included, and shown hatched in the years it raised, because it is most of 2021 and 2019 and nothing after.
Data and method
| Year | VC raised | Rounds | Median round |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | $1.44bn | 75 | $1m |
| 2020 | $0.49bn | 68 | $1m |
| 2021 | $2.52bn | 125 | $3m |
| 2022 | $0.72bn | 111 | $2m |
| 2023 | $0.94bn | 114 | $3m |
| 2024 | $1.13bn | 112 | $4m |
| 2025 | $1.38bn | 123 | $4m |
| 2026 to 22 Sep | $3.87bn | 73 | $10m |
Source: Dealroom next-gen API, transactions with the Space industry tag, headquarters in Europe and is_vc_round true, retrieved 22 September 2026. 2026 counts rounds dated January to 22 September. Round counts and medians for 2026 are provisional because of reporting lag. Totals count every VC round; the $100m+ ranking counts only rounds Dealroom has verified, which is why a named round earns its place there. Verification changes the money very little — under 2% in most years, none at all in 2026 — but it removes about a third of the rounds recorded in 2019 to 2021, so applying it to the series would understate how busy those years were. Company details and lead investors from the same API and the companies’ announcements. Wordmarks from Dealroom’s logo library and the companies’ own sites, flattened to one ink. D-Orbit, EOS-X SPACESHIP COMPANY, EnduroSat and The Exploration Company are shown by name: no horizontal logotype is published.