Europe has spent years producing promising technology companies. The harder task has been giving them enough growth capital to scale globally without moving their centre of gravity elsewhere.
ICEYE has now become the first investment made by the Scaleup Europe Fund, a European Commission-initiated vehicle managed by EQT. The fund co-led ICEYE’s recently announced €1 billion Series F financing, which included €450 million in primary investment at a valuation exceeding €10 billion.
The investment is significant for more than its size. The Scaleup Europe Fund has a target of €5 billion and was created to address Europe’s shortage of late-stage capital for companies working in strategically important fields such as space technology, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, clean energy and biotechnology.
Founded in Finland in 2014 by Rafał Modrzewski and Pekka Laurila, ICEYE builds and operates synthetic aperture radar satellites. Unlike conventional optical satellites, SAR systems can produce imagery through cloud cover and during darkness, making them useful for defence, intelligence, environmental monitoring, insurance and emergency response.
ICEYE says it owns the world’s largest and most advanced commercial SAR satellite constellation and provides end-to-end sovereign satellite systems to governments. EQT states that the company currently supports seven European governments and recently delivered an operational sovereign satellite capability to Poland in less than 12 months after contract signing. These capability and deployment claims are company- and investor-reported.
The company now employs more than 1,000 people and has significant operations across Finland, Poland, Spain and Greece, with newer entities in Germany and Portugal. The latest investment will support further expansion of its sovereign intelligence capabilities across Europe and international markets.