NewOrbit, a satellite manufacturer building for very low Earth orbit, has raised £14 million in an oversubscribed Series A led by Voyager Ventures. The round also includes angel investors David Kirk, former Chief Scientist at NVIDIA, and Lawrence Leuschner, co-founder and former CEO of European mobility unicorn TIER Mobility, alongside family office Custos and continued backing from Atlantic.vc, Lifeline Ventures, LGF, and Illusian. Capital from the round will fund construction of the NEO Production Complex and the launch of the world's first commercial satellite to fly at 200–300km altitude.
Between commercial aircraft at 10km and conventional satellites at 500km lies a band of near-Earth space known as very low Earth orbit (VLEO), which has remained commercially inaccessible since the dawn of the space age. Three forces have historically made it so: aerodynamic drag, which pulls spacecraft back to Earth within weeks; atomic oxygen, which corrodes their surfaces; and aerodynamic torques, which destabilise their orientation. NewOrbit has built purpose-engineered satellites equipped with an in-house propulsion system to withstand these conditions and operate reliably in VLEO for up to five years. Flying at 200–300km, its satellites will be able to offer the highest quality satellite imagery available today 20 times cheaper than conventional satellites, alongside faster data speeds. These capabilities open the door to new applications including 5G direct-to-device connectivity from space and live HD video — outcomes not possible with today's orbital geometry.
The Series A will fund construction of NewOrbit's NEO Production Complex, scheduled to open in 2027. The facility will integrate the company's first commercial satellite for launch in 2028, then scale from an initial capacity of ten satellites a year to several a week at full pace. At full operation, the Complex will be Europe's largest dedicated VLEO production facility. The 2028 launch will mark the first time commercial customer payloads have been flown at 200–300km, establishing Europe as the market leader in VLEO operations globally.
Founded in May 2021 and based in Reading, NewOrbit has assembled engineers from SpaceX, NASA JPL, Tesla, Airbus, ESA, and Formula 1, with several senior figures relocating to the United Kingdom to join the team. The company's advisory board includes Jean-Jacques Dordain, Director General of the European Space Agency from 2003 to 2015, and Sir Chris Deverell, former Commander of UK Joint Forces.
For sixty years, VLEO has been treated as too hostile an environment for commercial satellites — but it is in fact the most valuable empty real estate in space. Today, no one in the industry has a reliable, affordable and fast way to fly payloads in very-low Earth orbit. We built our NEO-1 satellite to do exactly that.
VLEO is the next foundational shift in the global space industry. The technology will unlock order of magnitude improvements in earth observation at a fraction of the cost today. We're proud to partner with NewOrbit on their journey to become the leading provider of commercial VLEO satellites globally.
VLEO is one of the few genuinely new commercial categories remaining in space, and opening it requires a rare combination of engineering excellence and institutional discipline. NewOrbit has both, and the fact that this category is being defined from the UK is significant for European space.
I believe VLEO will become a critical layer of future space infrastructure, supporting both commercial and national security missions. I'm proud that this capability is being built in the UK, helping to establish Britain as a leader in next-generation space technology.
