Lithuania’s Blackswan Space, has successfully closed its second investment round, led by Iron Wolf Capital, raising €2.5 million ($2.9M). Together with the company’s pre-seed round, its total funding now amounts to €3.2M ($3.7M).
Other investors included Lemonade Stand and former NanoAvionics co-founder Linas Sargautis – all previous investors of Blackswan – as well as NGL Ventures and Tomas Žalandauskas who also founded multiple successful high-tech companies in Lithuania.
While Blackswan’s pre-seed round allowed it to commercialise its Mission Design Simulator (MDS), capable of modelling complex autonomous mission execution, and secure multiple commercial customers in both EU and US including Auria Space, this latest funding enables Blackswan to accelerate the commercialisation of its rendezvous & proximity operations (RPO) system, the “RPO Kit”, and further the company’s expansion in the USA.
The RPO-Kit is a plug-and-play spacecraft payload, using Blackswan’s proprietary Vision-Based Navigation (VBN) system. It gives operators the technology to perform complex autonomous navigation manoeuvres in space. The company has been developing its VBN system for the past five years.
As the next major milestone on the way to commercialise the system, Blackswan will be testing its RPO Kit in orbit next year. The launch is scheduled for Q4 in 2027. This will be followed by the first European in-space refuelling mission “ASTRAL” (Advance Satcom Technology with Refuelling and Logistics), planned for 2028. ASTRAL is led by in-orbit logistics company Orbit Fab with Blackswan’s RPO Kit playing a critical part by enabling the docking of the two spacecraft and the subsequent refuelling operation. ASTRAL is backed by up to €3.3m ($3.8 million) in funding from the UK Space Agency and the European Space Agency (ESA).
