NeuralSat raises €2.9M to build 72-satellite orbital data relay
What's the deal? German startup NeuralSatDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has raised €2.9 million ($3.2 million) in a pre-seed round to build a 72-satellite network for relaying and processing data in orbit. Capnamic VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and Bayern KapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → co-led, with participation from Zoho.vcDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Robin CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, KIEMIS HoldingDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and Mission E Capital.
What's the endgame? NeuralSat wants satellite operators to offload communications and computing to shared nodes that process data and downlink it to ground stations. Its planned constellation targets data rates up to 50 gigabits per second over optical and high-frequency radio links, plus hosted-payload options for customers.
Why now? Orbit is getting crowded. ESADealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → projects roughly 100,000 satellites by 2030, up from 10,200 in 2024 — and the data they gather is hitting bottlenecks on the way to Earth.
Unlike rivals pitching orbital data centers as replacements for terrestrial ones, NeuralSat focuses on data already being gathered and moved in space. The company is a member of ESA's Business Incubation Center and the NVIDIA Inception Program.
NeuralSat will use the capital to fund an in-orbit demonstration in 2027 to validate its architecture, with the first operational satellites targeted for 2028.
What could go wrong? The raise is small and pre-demonstration against competitors already in service or backed by far larger contracts. Kepler said its optical relay network entered commercial service in August after launching 33 satellites, while NASA's November awards of up to $1.07 billion to Viasat, SES, and Astranis signal strong institutional demand for commercial relay — albeit for a different, Ka-band capability.
The signal: "Just as the internet transformed how computers interact on Earth, we intend to transform how intelligence is connected and delivered in space," chief executive officer Mohd Bilal said. The round marks an early European bet on fusing data relay with shared orbital processing — a market moving fast from proposal to service.
Read more: payloadspace.com
Image credit: NeuralSat
