Real anomaly It has closed $100 million in new funding, a strong sign that the appetite for startups operating at the intersection of aerospace and defense is far from abating.
The new round was led by Riot Ventures, with participation from Eclipse, ACME Capital, Menlo Ventures, Narya, 645 Ventures, Rocketship.vc, Champion Hill Ventures, and FiveNine Ventures. The funds will be used to further expand all parts of the business, according to a press release.
True Anomaly looks to fill a critical gap in space situational awareness and defensive operations through software and hardware, including a line of autonomous spacecraft capable of rendezvous and proximity operations. These vehicles, called Jackals, are equipped with an array of sensors and cameras to track, monitor and collect data about objects in space. On the software side, the company has developed an integrated operating platform called Mosaic, which will eventually be able to work alongside Jackals in orbit.
In previous interviews with TechCrunch, True Anomaly CEO Evan Rogers has pointed to what he sees as a dangerous “information asymmetry” between the United States and its adversaries in space. Jackal, Mosaic, and the company’s other work in space domain awareness aim to fill this gap.
The startup, founded by a quartet of former Space Force members in 2022, has been moving quickly toward that goal. In its first full year of operations, the company opened a 35,000 square foot facility in Centennial, Colorado and doubled its headcount to more than 100 employees.
In September, True Anomaly was awarded a $17.4 million contract from the US Space Force to build a range of space domain awareness capabilities, including helping the warfighter find and track objects in space, determine the characteristics of that object, and use artificial intelligence to predict changes In space and defined. Object behavior.
The first two Jackal spacecraft are scheduled to launch on SpaceX’s Transporter-10 ridesharing mission in March. In August, the company got the green light from regulators to conduct non-Earth imaging and demonstrate close encounters in space with the two spacecraft. It’s a massive technical challenge, so many people in both Silicon Valley and Washington will no doubt be paying close attention to how the experimental mission is carried out.