A record for Unseenlabs. Tuesday February 27, the Breton firm announced a fundraising of 85 million euros. One of the most important operations carried out in the “new space ” French this ecosystem of young companies which is developing in the space sector driven by a proliferation of private initiatives. “This is not a fundraiser to survive, and we could very well have continued to grow withoutrecognizes Clément Galic, the CEO of the company. But this will allow us to accelerate our development. »
Securing maritime zones, protecting the seabed, fighting against illegal fishing, against piracy… Based in Rennes, the company, founded in 2015, has specialized in the maritime surveillance of ships by detection and geolocation of radio frequency signals since space using technology developed by Jonathan Galic, one of the three founding brothers alongside Clément and Benjamin. While three satellites are needed to locate an object, by triangulation, only one is required with their solution, which confers a price advantage.
Eleven of these nanosatellites, no bigger than a shoebox and weighing 10 kilos, form a constellation which moves in low orbit between 500 and 600 kilometers from Earth. Two others should be launched in March by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the American base in Vandenberg, California. The objective is to deploy ten of them, by 2025, for this SME which has become the world’s leading supplier of radio frequency data for maritime surveillance.
A majority of customers outside France
For the moment, only the American company HawkEye 360 offers the same service and is used mainly for defense, “but not with the same technology”, insists Clément Galic, to clearly mark the difference. And it is this technological advantage, of having a single satellite for geolocation, that Unseenlabs wants to keep by accelerating its research thanks to fundraising.
At the same time, the Breton SME will establish itself in the American and Asian markets, because, of its fifteen clients, the majority are outside France. Originally, these were mainly public institutions and now private companies are showing interest such as insurers, firms working in oil and gas, economic intelligence, etc. “This makes it possible to monitor underwater infrastructure, such as pipelines or communications cables”he adds.
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