Kepler Communications announced the closure of a Series B round of financing valued at US$60 million on 9 June. This amount takes the total funding raised by Kepler to over US$90 million. Kepler is a newspace company building a CubeSat constellation to provide Ku-band, satellite-based internet to customers.
With this increased funding Kepler intends to continue its constellation deployment, develop and introduce its planned “next-generation” of satellites, and expand its workforce from 80 to 150 by the end of the year. Part of this increase in employees will come from a new US-based subsidiary which Kepler intends to form.
Phase Four
Following on from Kepler, American smallsat electric propulsion developer Phase Four announced the closure of its own Series B financing on 11 June. The company reported that this new financing was valued at US$26 million. This adds on to US$20 million that the company has managed to raise in earlier rounds.
Phase Four develops and produces the xenon-based “Maxwell” plasma propulsion system. This new funding is to be directed towards increasing Maxwell production numbers and supporting R&D efforts aimed at an iodine-fuelled version.
