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community spotlight

weekly industry meetups

view calendar - it’s American Meteorological Society annual meeting week

today, 01/26
  • Founders x RedPoint ventures panel (SF).

  • Consulate of Japan panel (NY).

  • Stanford x Ramp social (NY).

  • Founders x investors meetup (NY).

  • YC app roast (NY).

tomorrow, 01/27
  • AMS annual meeting (Houston).

  • MCP demo night x Perplexity x Databricks (SF).

  • Founder showcase (NY).

  • Founders karaoke (NY).

  • Venture breakfast (NY).

wednesday, 01/28
  • Climate tech stand up (LA).

  • Nobel laureate Richard Thaler fireside (SF).

  • Cafe compute (SF).

  • Female founders x investors (NY).

  • quantum x physical ai x drones meetup (NY).

  • Founder Junto dinner (NY).

  • Chess x chai (NY).

thursday, 01/29

  • BioScience open house (LA).

  • Female founder after hours (LA).

  • Dual-use tech x military AI x TEDAI (SF).

  • Github hackathon (SF).

  • Demo faire (SF).

  • Spacecom x Ben Schleuniger x Orbital Operations (Orlando).

  • Defense R&D summit (DC).

  • Khosla Ventures x private dinner (NY).

  • Tech breakfast (NY).

  • AI demos (NY).

  • AI demo night (NY).

  • AI founders co-working (NY).

  • Hardware happy hour (NY).

  • Founder bowling (NY).

friday, 01/30
  • Venture in the Capital (DC).

  • Founder breakfast club (NY).

  • Deep tech breakfast (NY).

saturday, 01/31
  • Founder x investor tech meetup (LA).

  • Physical AI hackathon (SF).

sunday, 02/01
  • eVTOLs x Caltech panel (LA).

upcoming

  • UAV Tech conference (DC).

  • SmallSat Symposium 2026 (SF).

  • Geo Week (Denver).

  • Space Summit (Miami)

space brew

weekly capital flows

government

  • Aurelius wins $151B MDA Shield IDIQ for c-UAS (X).

  • Kairos Power wins $303M DOE award for low power reactors (WNN).

  • Microsoft wins $170M USAF award for Azure support (GC).

  • Amentum wins $85M DOW IDIQ award for satcom, PNT, GPS, SDA support (SN).

  • Thales Alenia & Loft Orbital win $59M CNES & French Defense award for SAR ISR satellites (SN).

  • Starfish Space wins $53M SDA award for end-of-life disposal in LEO (X).

  • Beacon AI wins $4M USAF TACFI award for aviation command & control (BC).

  • ThinKom wins SpaceWERX award for phased array antennas for ground stations (SN).

  • NordSpace wins $335k Canadian IRAP award for light-to-medium-lift PLS (SN).

  • Aalyria wins AFRL award for satcoms & ground link modernization (VS).

pre seed / seed

  • Billdr raises $3.2M Seed by White Star, Desjardins for construction SaaS (BK).

  • Raana Semiconductors raises $3M by Equirus Innovatex Fund, Artha for silicon ingot manufacturing (X).

series A+

  • Upwind raises $250M Series B at $1.5 valuation by Bessemer, Salesforce, Greylock for cloud security (SW).

  • Gilmour Space Tech raises $145M Series E by Australian Government, Future Fund, Blackbird, QIC for liquid rocket engine & sovereign launch (AU).

  • D-Orbit secures $53M Series D by Azimut for edge computing & space logistics (SN).

  • Optalysys raises $31.4M Series A by UK National Security Fund, Northern Gritstone for photonic computing chips (TPV).

  • Grid Aero raises $20M Series A by Bison, Geodesic, Alumni Ventures for unmanned air cargo (BW).

  • Warpspace raises Series C by Sparx AM, Kohoku Kogyo, ANA Trading for optical modems & digital twins (LI).

m&a

  • Serve Robotics to acquire Diligent Robotics for $29M for healthcare physical AI (TC).

  • Exploration Company to acquire Orbex Space for launch vehicle & space logistics (ES).

  • Aimtron Electronics acquires ICS for electronics manufacturing partnerships across agriculture, O&G, mining, heavy equipment (X).

  • Life EV to acquire Rad Power Bikes for $13.2M out of bankruptcy (TC).

IPO / public

  • York Space, satellite manufacturer & Golden Dome partner, to IPO at $30 to $34 per share (BW).

Department of Veteran Affairs is offering $700B IDIQ awards for next-gen managed healthcare.

headlines

  • NASA & DOE partner on lunar nuclear reactors under Trump executive order (SN).

  • Global nuclear capacity target raised to 1450 GW by 2050 (WNN).

  • South Korea to build two nuclear reactors by 2038 (WNN).

  • UK Nuclear Transport Solutions & US Westinghouse partner on high assay low enriched uranium fuel transport (WNN).

  • BWX & Centrus Energy expand centrifuge manufacturing in Tennessee (WNN).

  • AEG Fuels expands aviation fuel to airports across Jersey, Arizona, Texas (AW).

  • Dcubed, Honeybee Robotics, Firefly partner on solar arrays for lunar rovers (LI).

  • Planet Labs & Slovenia partner on EO for agriculture, urban planning & disaster response (VS).

  • Aetherflux & Lockheed Martin partner on power beaming tech & orbital energy transfer (X).

  • Portal Space & Palladyne AI’s GuideTech partner on SDA avionics & PNT (LI).

  • WISeSat & Spacetalk partner on global space traffic coordination (SN).

  • Telesat, MDA Space, Hanwha Systems partner on Korean sovereign LEO satcoms & Canadian submarine patrol (VS).

  • L3Harris & LIG Nex1 partner on imaging for Korean weather satellite (VS).

  • Skin longevity market target raised to $41B by 2035 due to skin literacy (LT).

  • Marsh raises data center construction insurance facility to $2.7B on AI buildout (IB).

orbital classifieds

weekly insights.

[Exclusive] Founder Deep Dive Podcast Ep. 1.

Lee Wilson, Founder of Astracene.

Building space habitats for biotech & advanced materials R&D.

Inside the episode:

As a valued subscriber, you get early access to private space tech intelligence.

Open roles:

1 Ironstead (manufacturing, aerospace engineers, bankers).

2 Aurelius (power, robotics engineers).

3 Gambit Robotics (founding engineer).

Founders invite-only chat room. Join slack.

Investors invite-only deal flow. Join slack.

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