Thrilled to announce our Spaceit investment to create the mission control center for Space
We are beyond excited to welcome Spaceit to the Icebreaker family!
Lauri Kimmel, Silver Lodi and Mihkel Jalakas are long-time friends that embarked on a journey together in 2015 to make space missions better and cheaper. Lauri was a team member of the ESTCube-1, the first Estonian satellite that was launched in 2013. Since then Lauri has been involved with developing satellite mission control software for different projects. Silver brings commercial experience to the team through his background in banking and sales while Mihkel has a long experience in front-end software development. Spaceit is also an alumnus of ESA Business Incubation Centre in Estonia and Starburst Accelerator.
At Icebreaker.vc we’re excited about the growth of the space economy and are actively looking for teams that can tackle large challenges in the Space to bring space technology to a new software-defined era. With the growth of satellite launches and new space projects, it’s inevitable that cheaper and better technology will take over the customised approaches that have been used in the past.
Roughly 75% of any satellite mission budget is spent on developing mission control tools and integrating with ground station networks. Mission control software (MCS) is used to manage and operate the satellites and is a necessary part of any satellite launch. In the majority of cases, the MCS is built from scratch for each mission resulting in significant expense. While there are a few MCS providers today, they are characterised by limited functionality and complexity which means that they require highly trained satellite management experts to operate and maintain them.
Tartu-based Spaceit is on a journey to streamline these complex satellite operations by offering an end-to-end infrastructure for satellite operations and space cybersecurity solutions. The company has developed a cloud-based mission control platform with pre-integrated access to a worldwide network of ground stations, and provides satellite operations simulators to strengthen the rapidly growing space sector against cyberattacks.
“Our goal is to reduce satellite missions budgets over 80% by offering mission control as-a-service, combined with wide and secure communication with satellites. We are delighted to have the new investors with a good know-how on space, technology and infrastructure onboard who will support us developing our solution further,” stated Silver Lodi, CEO of Spaceit.
Spaceit’s €1M pre-seed round is led by us at Icebreaker.vc with participation from UG Investments from Estonia. The newly-added funds will be used for product development and expansion to new markets.
Great to have you on board, team Spaceit! 🎉
Related articles:
Tech.EU — Estonian satellite operations and space cybersecurity startup Spaceit raises €1 million
