The Asia cap raise — who got funded, and who wrote the cheque

Throughout my travels into Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong, the one thing every conversation had in common was the money. The capital.

So here's a new series. How do we show investors abroad that there's real confidence in the technology out here, and that the risk is worth taking? By putting the actual cheques on the page — who raised, how much, from whom, and whether the thing they're building has flown yet.

Most of you work in this industry. I'd genuinely love your response on this one — reply and tell me if this is useful, and what's missing.

Signed, not yet closed

Astrum Space · Singapore · ~US$1B equity value, US$172.5M in trust

Merging with Black Spade Acquisition III to list on the NYSE, with existing shareholders keeping over 80%. The SPAC is sponsored by Black Spade Capital, the Hong Kong family office of Melco's Lawrence Ho, per the South China Morning Post. Close expected by year end.

Announced 27 August, not yet completed. The company is operating though. It already runs an L-band GEO satellite, and ran a 5G broadcast to an ordinary smartphone with Qualcomm in 2024. Its own satellite, NEASTAR-1 from SWISSto12, is a 2028–29 launch.

Closed in the last two weeks

Deep Blue Aerospace 深蓝航天 · Jiangsu, China · nearly 2 billion yuan (~US$280M), rounds B6 + B7, 21 Sep

Wuxi High-tech Zone Investment Holding, Addor Capital, and listed companies Botong Technology and Hongrun Construction. Funds go to Nebula-1, the medium reusable, and Nebula-2 behind it.

Closed. Nebula-1's orbital debut is the milestone this round is buying.

创芯慧联 ChuangXin HuiLian · Chengdu, China · over 200 million yuan (~US$28M), Series D2, 30 Sep

Led by Xingzheng Investment, with three municipal funds — Deyang, Changsha, Chengdu Jinniu — following on. Founded 2019; makes the chips that let a phone talk to a satellite directly.

Closed. Money is for mass production, plus 6G pre-research. The picks-and-shovels layer of direct-to-device.

Agnikul Cosmos · Chennai, India · ₹200 crore (~US$21M), 25 Sep

From the Technology Development Board's RDI Fund, structured as optionally convertible debentures — a government loan that can turn into equity. For Agnibaan's reusable version, TRL-4 to TRL-8.

Closed. Agnikul flew a suborbital test in 2024; this is the money for the orbital vehicle.

执宇航天 Zhiyu Aerospace · Zhuzhou, China · nine-figure yuan (~US$14M+), angel+ round, 30 Sep

Every existing backer followed on: Zhuzhou BeiDou Industrial Development Investment Holding, plus Minsheng International and the listed Century Huatong. That BeiDou is the city's investment arm, not the satellite navigation programme. Xuanhu Capital and Qingke Chuanglian came in new. Its Fission-A reusable small launcher targets first flight in 2027.

Closed, and the number that matters isn't the raise — it's 37 satellite launches already under contract before the rocket has flown. Second round this year; the angel was in May.

GalaxEye · Bengaluru, India · ₹64 crore (~US$7.7M) of a ₹247.69 crore project, TDB RDI Fund

For OptoSAR — one satellite that images with radar and optics together, targeting sub-0.5m resolution, TRL-6 to TRL-9.

Closed. Same fund, same month, same instrument as Agnikul. India's TDB is quietly becoming a space bank.

JAOPS · Tokyo · ¥260 million (~US$1.7M) seed, 1 Oct

UntroD Capital and Midtown Frontier Fund, on top of JAXA Space Strategy Fund support. Building its first mission control centre and selling "operations as a service."

Closed, and already serving operators in Japan, Spain, France, the UK, South Korea and the US. Smallest cheque here, longest customer list.

Reported only

Skyroot Aerospace · Hyderabad · in advanced talks for US$280–300M at a ~US$3B valuation

Fidelity, General Catalyst and Benchmark named in reports — Benchmark's first direct cheque into an Indian company if it lands. Talks follow Vikram-1 reaching orbit on 18 July.

Reported only, no company statement. It would be India's largest private space round; Pixxel's US$100M in September is the bar.

If you want in, there's a government match

Singapore names spacetech as a target sector under SEEDS Capital's co-investment scheme, run through the Startup SG Equity programme.

For deep tech the published ratio is SEEDS to you. If it's the company's first institutional round, SEEDS puts in S$2 for every S$1 you put in, until SEEDS has committed S$1 million. After that it's 1:1 up to S$4M, then 1:2, then 1:3, capping at S$12M from SEEDS.

Announcing 20 new partners in February 2025, SEEDS said it would set aside S$150 million over three years to catalyse another S$300 million. The pool is 52 co-investors — Global Brain, Paspalis Capital and East Ventures among them. SEEDS money is already in the room: it backed Aliena's US$5.6 million Series A in 2024, alongside Cap Vista and NTUitive. Aliena's thruster flies on NTU's next satellite.

True or not

1. One of the companies above has signed launch contracts for 37 satellites before its rocket has ever flown.
2. Across the whole global space sector in 2024, there were 40 IPOs.

Answer at the bottom.

What I noticed putting this together: three of the six closed rounds had a government fund on the cap table — both Indian rounds came from the Technology Development Board, and Deep Blue’s had two Wuxi city funds and the Shanghai Free Trade Zone Fund in it. A fourth, Zhiyu’s, included capital from a Shanghai state-owned group. In Asia the state often wants equity now, not just a grant receipt.

Reply and tell me what you want in the next one.

— shirley

(2 is the false one. There were four IPOs in 2024, worth US$281.2 million across the entire sector — the exit window was shut. It reopened in 2025–26: Firefly, York Space, SpaceX, and now Astrum.)

Cover: Earth at Night 2012 — Asia, NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio. Public domain.