Astrocast raised $9.2 million to launch IoT constellation

Recently, Astrocat has raised around 9 million in Swiss fiat currency, which is approximately 9.2 million USD. The funding would build and deploy a massive constellation of the Internet of Things satellites. By the looks of it, no other Swiss startup has ever accomplished such a feat in terms of curating IoT powered satellites.

Moreover, the series A funding round on the 4th of September 2019 would bring around 16.6 million in Sweden's fiat currency. In addition to this, Astrocast has raised this amount since it came into being in the year 2014. The company did decline to provide the name of the investors. However, Astrocast did say that the funding comprises a combination of some old and some new investors.

During the early stages of funding raising, capital firms such as Airbus Ventures and Investiere also contributed to the seed funding. So far, Astrocast has already put two demonstrative satellites in the planet's orbit in the present-day. The first satellite from the company was launched back in December on the SpaceX Falcon 9 space rocket which Spaceflight has booked for the SmallSat Express mission.

On the other hand, the company launched the second satellite back in April via Indian Polar Satellite space-launching vehicle. The company is currently preparing to launch a constellation of around 80 satellites either by 2023 or 2024, according to Fabien Jordan, the CEO Astrocast.

Astrocast already made plans to bring forward 64 satellites that will be operational in the forthcoming days. Nevertheless, the company increases the volume of the satellites around 80 after they realized that it would need a significant amount of spacecraft to aid the customers to avail the services. There is also an undetermined number of spares that would support the operational spacecraft.

According to Jordan, Astrocast will launch the first five operational satellites that would launch in spring 2020. In the following month, the company would launch five more satellites.

**This post was published on https://spacenews.com