German scaleup constellr, the global leader in high-precision thermal intelligence from space and a member of the EIC Scaling Club New Space group, has raised €37 million in Series A funding. The round, led by Alpine Space Ventures and Lakestar, is one of the largest Series A rounds in European space technology to date. The investment will accelerate the expansion of constellr’s pioneering, fully operational thermal intelligence capabilities and advance the system to defence-grade status for governments, military entities, and security agencies.
constellr closes the critical gap in Europe’s sovereign intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) architecture by delivering the missing third axis. Its high-precision thermal intelligence adds a behavioural insight layer, revealing what assets are doing and why, complementing radar’s structural mapping and optical imaging’s visual classification.
“constellr’s technology delivers an intelligence capability Europe has long needed: the ability to see not just where assets are, but how they are operating – the behavioural insight that turns detection into intent assessment. This funding will take an already operational system and scale it through the first steps into series production to full defence-grade performance, giving Europe the missing third axis in sovereign ISR,” Bulent Altan, Alpine Space Ventures.
By providing sovereign control over critical intelligence in an increasingly contested geopolitical landscape, constellr strengthens European resilience and deterrence. This aligns with European space policy's unprecedented emphasis on and multi-billion investments in security-driven missions and rapid deployment of strategic capabilities. The scale-up is the only proven operational provider of high-resolution thermal infrared data based in the EU, delivering measurement precision unmatched in the commercial domain.
“Sovereign resilience requires understanding real activity on the ground, not just seeing objects. Thermal intelligence provides the earliest and most reliable signal of operational change, from detecting rocket and airbase activity to identifying active reactors and hidden industrial operations. Europe must own this capability. constellr is already delivering operational intelligence today, and this funding accelerates our path to full defence-grade performance to close critical gaps in Europe’s sovereign ISR architecture,” says Dr. Max Gulde, CEO and Co-Founder of constellr.
constellr's technology delivers earlier detection, independent verification, and highly reliable assessments of activity in contested or deceptive environments. Defence and security forces can uncover hidden operations, track non-cooperative assets, and anticipate deployments before they occur, even where conventional monitoring is impossible.
The recent financing round was led by Alpine Space Ventures, with co-lead Lakestar, and participation from Semapa Next, Bayern Kapital, Cardumen Capital, Cooperative Ventures, Kineo Finance, and strong continued support from existing shareholders, including Vsquared, CosmiCapital, Fraunhofer Technologie-Transfer Fonds, and EIC Fund.
Klaus Hommels from Lakestar commented on the investment: “Fostering European tech resilience and sovereignty is Lakestar’s core mission. Our continent’s strategic autonomy and defence capabilities depend on mastering every dimension of space-based intelligence. constellr’s pioneering technology stack adds the crucial behavioural layer to the ISR ecosystem. Lakestar is proud to support the transition from proven operational capability to full defence-grade readiness.”
The EIC Scaling Club is a curated community where 120 European deep tech scale-ups with the potential to build world-class businesses and solve major global challenges come together with investors, corporate innovators and other industry stakeholders to spur growth.
The top 120 European deep tech companies have been carefully selected from a pool of high-growth scale-ups that have benefitted from EIC financial schemes, other European and national innovation programmes, and beyond.
The EIC Scaling Club is an EIC-funded initiative run in partnership by Tech Tour, Bpifrance (EuroQuity), Hello Tomorrow, Tech.eu (Webrazzi), EurA and IESE Business School.
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