Europe’s NewSpace sector is accelerating into a full-stack ecosystem spanning launch vehicles, satellite manufacturing, ground networks, Earth-observation constellations and next-generation in-orbit services.
Against this backdrop, the first half of 2025 delivered a series of notable financings across the continent.
Among them, Aistech Space, a Spanish spacetech company building a constellation of small satellites for thermal and multispectral Earth observation, closed one of the largest rounds, raising €8.5mn to accelerate its 2025-2028 roadmap and scale its Hydra constellation.
Founded 2015, Aistech’s €8.5mn raise places it among the top 10 European spacetech rounds of 2025 and highlights the sector’s wider trajectory: vertically integrated manufacturing, dual-use applications, and commercial constellations that compete globally on capability and cost.
With the Hydra rollout underway, Aistech Space is positioning itself as a key thermal-intelligence provider inside Europe’s rapidly expanding NewSpace economy.
Aistech Space operates high-frequency thermal-infrared and multispectral satellites designed to deliver actionable geospatial intelligence.
The company’s proprietary TIR telescope, engineered for smallsat platforms, enables affordable, high-resolution thermal monitoring at global scale.
These capabilities support a wide range of use cases, including fire-hazard and deforestation monitoring, agricultural analytics, infrastructure surveillance, water-resource protection and maritime/aviation tracking via AIS/ADS-B.
Our mission is to generate accessible, recurrent, high-resolution thermal imagery of the planet
Guillermo Valenzuela, CEO and co-founder of Aistech Space
“Thermal data is essential for understanding environmental change, and our satellites give organizations the information they need to mitigate threats such as forest fires, water loss, pollution and illegal activity,” said Guillermo Valenzuela.
Aistech began commercial deployments through its partnership with Orbital Astronautics. In its 2021 Guardian mission, the company flew a multispectral payload on OrbAstro’s ORB-6 satellite via a SpaceX rideshare.
That mission marked the first step toward a planned 20-satellite thermal-imaging constellation — one of the earliest commercial efforts to deliver on-demand, high-resolution TIR data.
Across EU a new wave of startups is building microlaunchers, reusable spaceplanes, re-entry capsules, satellite buses, optical-communication payloads and high-thrust electric propulsion – while specialised players target ground infrastructure, space-situational awareness and hosted-payload “space-as-a-service’’ models.
This momentum is spilling into defence, climate and critical-infrastructure applications. Dual-use technologies with space heritage, from laser systems to CO₂-capture hardware, are moving into wider industry, reinforcing Europe’s reputation as a hub of applied space innovation.
