CesiumAstro Raises $730M, Reaches Valuation Above $4.5B

What happened

CesiumAstro plans to build and deploy a new constellation—called Synchronicity—consisting of 737 satellites, deployed with the help of a recently closed $730M financing round.

MERRITT ISLAND, FL—CesiumAstro plans to build and deploy a new constellation—called Synchronicity—consisting of 737 satellites.

Element-1 launched on SpaceX’s Transporter-18 rideshare in October, on a mission designed to pave the way for the full Synchronicity constellation. Element-1 is the first of eight planned spacecraft with launches secured between 2028 and 2029.

The company made a downpayment on it Thursday, closing a $730M financing round. Janus Henderson led the equity round, which included additional participation from Insight Partners, Sands Capital, Sumitomo Corporation of Americas, Woven Capital, Incharge Capital, Magnetar, AV, and NewSpace Capital.

The round included a $100M debt facility provided by the Export-Import Bank of the United States and JPMorgan in addition to $630M in equity financing. Small step, giant leap: The announcement comes just over a month after CesiumAstro sent its first satellite to orbit.

“You can build a satellite like you used you that’s a billion dollars and bullet proof, but you’ve taken a decade to test it out,” CesiumAstro founder and CEO Shey Sabripour told Payload. These sats are intended to build out CesiumAstro’s in-space compute capabilities.