K2 Space today announced its $110 million Series B to ramp up mass production of its multi-orbit, high power satellite platform. The funding round, co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Altimeter Capital, includes participation from existing investors Alpine Space Ventures, First Round Capital, and others. This milestone comes as K2 celebrates the opening of its new 180,000 square foot factory in Torrance, California, and the success of its first in-space demonstration flying a number of critical components developed in-house. Since its inception, K2 Space has raised $180M in equity and won over $50M in government and commercial contracts.
K2 Space is changing the economics of satellite connectivity and functionality, having designed a resilient, high power, high payload mass satellite platform at a cost that enables proliferation across orbits. With increasing demand for proliferated space applications requiring high throughput and levels of compute, K2’s solution provides an answer for customers who, until now, have been forced to trade between performance and affordability. The company plans to use the newly raised capital to scale production, hire talent, and bring additional components in-house.
“Advanced space capabilities can’t be built on small, low-powered platforms,” said Karan Kunjur, CEO at K2 Space, “but higher capability satellites have been far too expensive for most proliferated applications. This is the gap K2 fills – making highly capable, powerful satellites available to a much broader market. And because our satellites are designed to proliferate in higher orbits, our constellations require fewer satellites and fewer launches to provide global coverage.”
K2 Space recently announced a government contract for its first mission, “Gravitas”, which is designed to both demonstrate the platform’s ability to operate in the high radiation environment of medium-earth orbit (MEO), and perform the first of its kind low earth orbit (LEO) to MEO electric propulsion orbit raise. Taking advantage of the platform’s high power generation and versatile payload deck, the Gravitas mission will carry a mix of National Security and commercial payloads, demonstrating the ability to execute against critical mission areas while enabling a wide variety of space applications.
“We are at the dawn of a Space Supercycle,” said Erik Kriessmann, Partner at Altimeter Capital, “where new launch vehicles and reduced-cost, reliable access to space are transforming the entire market. K2 Space is taking advantage of this paradigm shift by mass-manufacturing multi-mission satellites that deliver unprecedented capabilities and enable multi-orbit constellations.” Added Connor Love, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, “As the demands of space operations evolve, so too must the capabilities of satellite builders.”
K2 Space is entering 2025 on the heels of a blockbuster 2024 for the company. In addition to winning new government and commercial business, the company scaled from 25 to 90 full-time employees, and successfully completed full activation and operation of all hardware launched on its first in-space mission, including the flight computer, microcontroller core board, motor controller, and reaction wheel. Given how much of the bus K2 is building in-house, this successful component mission represents a major milestone – burning down significant technical risk – in preparation for Gravitas.
“We’ve attracted huge interest from both commercial and national security customers, who tell us that the platform we’ve designed is unique, differentiated, and unlocks a multitude of pressing applications for their organizations,” Karan continued. “As we’ve been able to prove out our technology and price point, customers have expressed greater excitement — but also urgency — in what we’re building. The Series B is a vote of confidence from our investors, and importantly, allows us to more quickly address what is a critical gap in the market.”
K2 Space is developing a high-powered, low-cost satellite bus platform that delivers the capability of satellites at the price point and speed of small satellites. Redesigned from the reaction wheel up, the K2 bus multi-manifests up to 10 satellites per launch vehicle, is made to handle the harsh environment of MEO and GEO, and has the highest power electric propulsion system ever flown — making it the platform of choice for Proliferated LEO, Proliferated MEO, and Proliferated GEO. K2 Space was started by a team of former SpaceX engineers and has raised $180M in venture capital to date, with the backing of leading funds like Lightspeed Venture Partners, Altimeter Capital, and First Round Capital.
