Raising capital for a space tech startup means navigating a mix of dedicated "NewSpace" specialist funds , deep-tech generalists, and corporate/strategic players.
The primary venture capital firms specializing in or actively leading rounds in the space tech domain are organized below by category:
Dedicated Space Tech Specialists
Seraphim Space – Based in London, this is one of the world's most prolific dedicated SpaceTech investment funds, spanning accelerator programs through growth-stage backing across Earth observation, communications, and defense resilience.
Space Capital – A New York-based seed and early-stage fund entirely focused on the space economy stack, GPS/geospatial intelligence, and satellite communications. They are deeply operational and publish widely followed industry data.
– Based in Houston, Texas, this early-stage venture firm focuses on space utility, logistics, and in-space infrastructure.
NewSpace Capital – A Luxembourg-based private equity and growth-stage investor targeting the European and broader space ecosystem with a team rich in aerospace engineering backgrounds.
Tier-1 Deep Tech & Frontier VCs (Active Space Core)
Lux Capital – Renowned for high-conviction, early-to-growth "long-shot" deep tech and frontier science bets, with a massive footprint in aerospace, defense dual-use, and orbital infrastructure (e.g., Planet Labs, Varda).
Founders Fund – Famous for early foundational bets on category-defining aerospace giants like SpaceX alongside newer propulsion and defense-tech startups.
DCVC (Data Collective) – Deep tech generalists who heavily back capital-efficient and data-driven space companies, earth-scanning constellations, and orbital logistics.
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) – Through their American Dynamism practice, they actively invest in aerospace, defense, and hard-tech infrastructure with massive dry powder for scaling rounds.
Bessemer Venture Partners – Long history of frontier aerospace and satellite infrastructure investing (such as Rocket Lab).
Strategic & Corporate VCs (CVCs)
Airbus Ventures – The corporate venture arm of Airbus, investing globally from Silicon Valley, Paris, and Tokyo into transformative aerospace and space innovations.
RTX Ventures – The venture arm of RTX (Raytheon), focused on aerospace, defense, and advanced-technology solutions.
Lockheed Martin Ventures – Strategic investor targeting early-stage capabilities in remote sensing, propulsion, and satellite systems.
If you'd like to narrow this down, tell me:
What is your current funding stage (Seed, Series A, etc.)?
Is your technology commercial, dual-use, or strictly defense-focused?
I can help you pinpoint which of these funds are the best fit for your specific pitch.
Yes. If you’re raising for a space-tech company, I’d prioritize investors with actual space underwriting experience rather than simply “deep tech” VCs that happen to have one aerospace investment.
This is probably the cleanest specialist target if you're building a commercially oriented space business. Founded in 2012, it now reports $1B+ AUM across four institutional funds and invests across infrastructure, distribution and applications. Its portfolio includes companies such as SpaceX, Planet, Rocket Lab, Impulse Space and ICEYE.
Probably the most obvious specialist investor if you're looking for a fund whose identity is SpaceTech. Seraphim describes itself as a specialist SpaceTech investor and has backed 150+ SpaceTech startups, including ICEYE, D-Orbit, LeoLabs, Xona, Skylo, Pixxel, AST SpaceMobile and Tomorrow.io. Its latest early-stage fund closed above $100M in 2026 and targets Seed/Series A globally.
Don't overlook the "space-adjacent" mega-specialists
Depending on what you're building, I'd also approach Lux Capital, DCVC, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst and Andreessen Horowitz's American Dynamism practice. They aren't pure-play space funds, but can be much better leads for companies where space intersects with defense, AI, robotics, autonomy, semiconductors, energy or industrial infrastructure.
For example, Lux explicitly categorizes investments under Physics + Aerospace and has backed Anduril. www.luxcapital.com DCVC is a deep-tech specialist with a long history of investing in technically difficult, capital-intensive technologies.
One important distinction
The best investor depends enormously on what kind of space company you are:
🚀 Launch / propulsion → Space Capital, Seraphim, Airbus Ventures + deep-tech/defense VCs
🛰️ Satellite / spacecraft hardware → Seraphim, Airbus Ventures, Space Capital
🛡️ Defense / ISR / dual-use → Seraphim + American Dynamism, Founders Fund, Lux, DCVC and defense specialists
🌙 Lunar / in-space economy → Space Capital, Seraphim, and frontier-tech funds
The sector is also getting considerably larger: Seraphim's latest tracker reports $23B invested in SpaceTech over the 12 months through Q2 2026, with 620 deals.
If you tell me your company's stage (pre-seed/Seed/A/B), what you're building, where you're headquartered, and roughly how much you're raising, I can turn this into a targeted list of ~20 VCs ranked by fit, including the specific partner at each fund you should approach.
