Billionaire Richard Branson and Virgin Orbit the largest investors in SatRev from Wroclaw. Space business worth millions
Space business worth millions
Grzegorz Zwoliński, president of SatRevolution (the SatRev startup operates in Pracze Odrzanskie, on the premises of the Łukasiewicz Research Network – Port Polish Technology Development Center in Wroclaw) wrote on his Facebook profile: – SatRev achieves further successes and closes the investment process with Virgin Orbit. Virgin Orbit is now officially SatRev’s largest investor in the Series B investment round that the company is currently finalizing.
Virgin Orbit is a company founded by Richard Branson. It specializes in sending small payloads into space. At the end of 2021, we wrote that Virgin Orbit, an American space company, would invest in SatRevolution, a Wroclaw-based manufacturer of nanosatellites. The deal was signed last December 14 during the Paris World Satellite Business Week summit. The investment means the startup, which began its career in Pracze Odrzanskie and has been conquering space for the past five years, was worth $150 million (December 2021).
Billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit and Wroclaw-based SatRev
The deal, signed during World Satellite Business Week in Paris, followed a partnership formed between SatRev and Virgin Orbit in June 2021, through which the companies plan to develop business applications for use with nanosatellites.
Exactly how much SatRevolution will acquire from Virgin Orbit was not known, as the companies did not disclose details. What is known is that the Wroclaw-based company needs $30 million for further development, and part of this amount will be invested by Branson’s company.
On September 11 this year, the money.pl portal reported that British billionaire Richard Branson had invested five million dollars in the Wroclaw-based SatRev company. For the Wroclaw-based SatRev, this means an open path in further conquest of space and joint flights with Virgin Orbit already beyond Earth orbit. There are plans to reach the Moon, Mars or Venus.
Poland’s first satellite factory will be built by SatRevolution Company
Hundreds of very small satellites will be produced in Poland’s first nanosatellite factory by the Wroclaw-based SatRevolution Company – a letter of intent for this innovative investment from the space sector was signed in Wroclaw on May 11. The satellite manufacturing plant is expected to cost PLN 50 million, and production is scheduled to start at the end of 2023.
What Wroclaw-based SatRevolution is doing
SatRev is a Wroclaw-based startup that specializes in the design, production and operation of real-time Earth observation satellites. SarRev’s satellites are used in agriculture, monitoring infrastructure (including pipelines), energy, government (including the movement of troops, refugees), and transportation and environmental protection.
What SatRevolution is already doing is being successfully applied by Wroclaw. It is the first city in the world to use space technology from SatRevolution to seal the local tax system. Detailed analyses of satellite images of Wroclaw are being used to control property taxes.
SatRevolution history of a company dreaming of conquering space
SatRevolution S.A. was founded in June 2016 by Grzegorz Zwoliński, Damian Fijałkowski and Radosław Łapczyński, creators of the Wroclaw-based T-Bull S.A. studio, a leading Polish mobile game developer. The creators of SatRevolution are the winners of the award – “30 Creatives of Wroclaw 2017”.
Space technologies from Wroclaw
Wroclaw has an increasingly strong position in the Polish space industry. It is worth recalling that Wrocław-based Scanway and Berlin-based German Orbital Systems are preparing a joint STAR VIBE space mission. Their satellite will be launched from Florida in 2022 aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
