Satellite Spotlight | Capital's hardware era

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space brew

// Fascinating topics to discuss this week

deal flow

government

• Northrop Grumman invests $20M to modernize Alabama facility for air & missile defense (SN).

• Outpost Space secures $1.8M SBIR for payload re-entry heat shield tech (SN).

seed

• Conifer raises $20M Seed by True, MaC, & MVF for rare-earth-metal free electric motors (TC).

• A16z leads $2B Seed for Thinking Machines for safe multimodal artificial intelligence (CC).

series A+

• frontline.io raises $10M Series A for AR/XR in industrial & manufacturing operations (AO).

• Phantom Neuro raises $19M Series A from Draper Assoc. for peripheral neural interface tech (MH).

• nEye closes $58M Series B by CapitalG, M12, Micron, & NVIDIA for light based data transfer to lower energy costs by data centers (RT).

• Basepower wins $200M Series B by Addition, a16z, Lightspeed for grid balanced battery fleet (TC).

m&a

• Silver Lake buys 51% stake for $4.46B in Altera, Intel chip arm to scale FPGA innovation (BW).

• Canadian Capital Power acquires two natural gas power plants in Pennsylvania & Ohio for $2.2B to join North America’s top 5 IPPs (EN).

• Hugging Face acquires Pollen Robotics creator of for domestic humanoid automation (TC).

• Applied Materials acquires 9% stake of BE semiconductor for die-based hybrid bonding (SDX).

headlines

• 🚀

  • Momentus partners with Velo 3D for low cost production of space components (SN).

  • Rocket Lab selected for US & UK hypersonic $46B IDIQ contract for launch service (AT).

  • NOAA budget shakeup hits weather satellites & space traffic programs (SN).

  • Blue Canyon of RTX unveils new reaction wheel to support larger payloads (SN).

  🤖

  • Carbon Robotics partners with Starlink to streamline autonomous agritech (VS).

  • Xaba secures $6M for industrial manufacturing robots (BK).

  🔬

  • Pharmaceuticals & legacy to leading-edge semiconductors risk broader tariffs (BBG).

community spotlight

// Must attend deep tech events in NYC, SF, LA this week

today, 02/15

• Tools for decarbonization (NYC).

• Infrastructure forum (LA).

• AI pitch night x Alumni Ventures (SF).

wednesday, 02/16

• Tech breakfast (NYC).

• Industrial tech hangout (NYC).

thursday, 02/17

• Hardware meetup (NYC).

• Women’s healthcare (NYC).

• Sustainable infrastructure & industry (LA).

• Tech breakfast (SF).

saturday, 02/19

• Earth day at Griffin Park (LA).

• Robot hackathon (NYC).

• Columbia climate tech co-founder matching (NYC).

Take me to the full events calendar of 2025.

cosmic weekly insights

// Takeaways

Capital pulse

This week’s velocity flowed to industrials, autonomy, and circular materials. Energy infra, cyber automation, robotics, and next-gen surgical tools all saw movement.

Notably, capital skew to Series A suggests conviction in companies post-prototype, pre-hyper-scale. The market wants proof, not promises.

💡 ImFo Market Intelligence: Dossier of industry leads.

📅 2025 Calendar: Must-attend space tech, deep tech events in North America.

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