ICEYE secures EUR 150 Series E round led by General Catalyst – Tesi also participated
U.S.-based General Catalyst has led a EUR 150 million Series E round in Finnish satellite company ICEYE, the market leader in its segment. The new funding will accelerate the delivery of new sovereign satellite systems and advanced data intelligence solutions. The round also included strong pan-European participation from A.P. Moller Holding (Denmark), Bpifrance (France), Vinci (BGK Group) and RIO 2 ASI (Poland), as well as Finnish investors Tesi, Solidium, Ilmarinen, Keva, Lifeline Ventures, Varma, and Peter Sarlin*.
ICEYE, a global leader in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technology, develops small radar imaging satellites. ICEYE’s satellites and imaging solutions are used in defense and intelligence, disaster response and recovery, humanitarian aid allocation, and monitoring the impacts of climate change.
“Under Tesi’s new strategy, our goal is to strengthen Finnish companies with exceptional potential for scalable growth in strategically significant sectors. ICEYE exemplifies this ambition: the company has secured a strong position in global competition while creating new technology expertise and growth in Finland,” says Juha Lehtola, Director of Venture and Growth Investments at Tesi.
Tesi has been with ICEYE since its early stages. In 2014, Tesi’s portfolio fund Lifeline Ventures nvested in ICEYE. Later, Tesi made its own direct investments in the company: an initial investment in 2018 and a follow-on investment in 2022. Through these investments, Tesi has also channeled EU funding to ICEYE via the ESIR co-financing program created in partnership with the European Investment Bank. ICEYE is one of the Finnish unicorns – startup companies valued at over one billion dollars – in which Tesi has been an investor directly or indirectly through its fund investments.
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Additional information:
Juha Lehtola, Director, Venture & Growth Investments
juha.lehtola@tesi.fi
+358 40 064 7671
* Peter Sarlin is the founder of Nest AI, in which Tesi and Nokia recently co-invested.
Tesi (officially Finnish Industry Investment Ltd) is a state-owned, market-driven investment company that invests in venture capital and private equity funds and directly in Finnish startups and growth companies, and to new industrial scale businesses. tesi.fi | X (Twitter) | LinkedIn | Instagram | Bluesky | Threads | Newsletter