PLD SPACE increases its Series C to 288 million euros, with a new tranche of 108 million led by MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC. After fifteen years of developing its launch technologies, the Spanish company is now financing its production capacities, its test benches and its launch infrastructures. With a cumulative 488 million euros and a 158.9 million contract awarded by the ESA, it has some of the means to change scale. But MIURA 5 has still not reached orbit. The challenge for PLD SPACE is therefore no longer just to fly a rocket: it is to manufacture enough of them, to launch them regularly, and to find customers capable of filling this industrial capacity.
PLD SPACE adds 108 million euros to a Series C which now reaches 288 million. MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC is once again leading the operation, alongside the Spanish public manager COFIDES. ENDEAVOR CATALYST and the Spain Oman Private Equity Fund, a vehicle managed by MCH PRIVATE EQUITY, join the round.
This tranche brings the cumulative financing announced by the Spanish company to 488 million euros. An amount to which we should not mechanically add the 158.9 million that the European Space Agency has just allocated to it as part of the European Launcher Challenge: this institutional contract will be released as milestones are reached, it is not fundraising.
The new capital will finance the industrialization of MIURA 5, the increase in production and testing capacities, launch infrastructure and the transition to commercial operations.
After the rocket, PLD SPACE must demonstrate the cadence
Founded in 2011 by Raúl Torres and Raúl Verdú, PLD SPACE has spent more than a decade building its technological bricks. The launch of MIURA 1, in October 2023, marked the main milestone of this first phase: this suborbital demonstrator was to test technologies, procedures and operations before the development of MIURA 5, the company’s true orbital product.
The next step is of another nature, MIURA 5 must be able to place up to 540 kilograms in sun-synchronous orbit, from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou. Its first test flight remains scheduled for 2026. The launcher has therefore neither reached orbit nor demonstrated the repeatability required for commercial operation.
This distinction is fundamental, because building a functional launcher is still deeptech, when building several dozen identical copies each year becomes an industrial discipline.
It is precisely this transition that PLD SPACE wants to make. The plan presented to its suppliers provides for a gradual increase from pre-series to semi-series production, then industrial manufacturing from 2027. The objective is to reach 32 MIURA 5s per year by 2030, or, theoretically, almost one rocket every eleven days.
At this rate, it is no longer enough that the engine works, but that it can be produced in a reproducible manner, that the structures come out at the planned rate, that the components arrive on time, that quality control is standardized, that the test benches do not become a bottleneck, and that the launchers can be transported and then prepared fairly quickly between two missions.
Industrial performance is becoming as important as technological performance. PLD SPACE knows this, and the company today boasts more than 500 employees and sites covering more than 188,000 square meters. Its Teruel testing center has just been reinforced with four new benches, while its industrial ecosystem already had nearly 400 strategic suppliers in 2025. More than 50 million euros have been invested in the MIURA 5 supply chain between 2024 and the first half of 2025.
Kourou is now part of the factory
In space, this production capacity does not stop at the factory gates. A launcher only has commercial value if it can be tested, transported, prepared and actually launched. A significant part of the capital mobilized by PLD SPACE therefore finances infrastructures located well beyond its headquarters in Elche.
In Kourou, the company is investing €35 million in its own launch complex at the Guiana Space Center, an investment from PLD SPACE, not funding received by the company. The civil works were in their final phase at the beginning of summer 2026. Of these 35 million, 22 must go to the French industrial ecosystem, including 13 to companies established in Guyana.
The company is also developing a presence in Duqm, Oman, which will complement its international launch capabilities. The arrival of the capital of the Spain Oman Private Equity Fund takes on an additional dimension in this context, the round of funding begins to reflect the future geography of the company.
PLD SPACE indeed wants to resolve two equations which might seem contradictory but are essential to its success: becoming a pillar of European space sovereignty, and building a global space transport operator.
Its strategy is to keep most of the technology, production and infrastructure in Europe, while internationalizing its investors, its customers and, gradually, its bases of operations.
MITSUBISHI is not only investing in PLD SPACE: it is also buying its future access to space
This is probably the most structuring dimension of this C Series.
MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC, which had already invested 50 million euros in the first tranche announced in March, is seeking to secure launch capacities for its small satellites, in order to develop its future activities linked to space data.
The Japanese group therefore potentially becomes a shareholder, industrial partner and customer of PLD SPACE. This combination is valuable for a deeptech faced with massive industrial investments. The classic problem: building production capacity before having the volume of orders to amortize them. Bringing a future strategic client into the capital brings the two timetables closer together.
For MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC, interest goes beyond financial performance. In a world where satellite constellations are becoming telecommunications, observation, defense or navigation infrastructures, having a satellite is no longer enough. It is still necessary to be able to send it into orbit when necessary, and the launcher itself becomes a strategic infrastructure.
With the European Launcher Challenge, ESA begins to finance demand
At the same time, Europe is changing the way it finances this new generation of operators. A few days before the new Series C tranche, the ESA awarded PLD SPACE a contract worth 158.9 million euros as part of the European Launcher Challenge. The amounts will be released as technical and commercial milestones are reached.
The initiative marks a real change in doctrine, because for several decades, autonomous European access to space was organized around the Ariane and Vega programs. The European Launcher Challenge now aims to bring out several competing commercial providers, with the ESA itself becoming a customer of new launch services.
Of course, PLD SPACE is not alone. ISAR AEROSPACE has been awarded up to 197.8 million euros, ROCKET FACTORY AUGSBURG has a contract worth 186.9 million, and the process regarding MAIASPACE has yet to be finalized. ISAR is developing Spectrum, capable of carrying up to one ton into low orbit; RFA One aims 500 kilograms towards a sun-synchronous orbit at 500 kilometers; MIURA 5 is aiming for 540. Europe is not seeking to immediately designate a single champion, and is starting to organize competition between several private operators.
This development brings space closer to sectors like defense, where public procurement is not only used to purchase an existing product, but helps to create the volumes that allow manufacturers to develop their capabilities.
ISAR AEROSPACE, MAIASPACE and PLD SPACE are already building the same thing: a mass-produced industry
European competition also shows that the PLD SPACE problem is not specific. In June, ISAR AEROSPACE raised 270 million euros in Series D. The announced use of the capital resembles almost word for word that of PLD SPACE: series production of Spectrum, development of operations, creation of an international network of launch bases. After Andøya in Norway, the German group is preparing an establishment in Canada.
In France, MAIASPACE is building the same industrial equation around Maia. Its future MaiaFactory in Vernon should enter service in the second half of 2027 and ultimately aim for a rate of around 20 launches per year at the start of the next decade.
However, the market for small satellites does not guarantee that of small launchers
The underlying business could look particularly favorable. A record 4,466 small satellites were sent into space in 2025, according to BRYCETECH (98% of the total number of spacecraft launched in the year, and 85% of the mass sent into orbit.)
But only 4% of these small satellites traveled on micro or small launchers. The remaining 96% were put into orbit by medium, heavy or super-heavy launchers. The number of small satellites is therefore exploding without the market for small launchers increasing in the same proportions.
The reason is largely due to the economics of rideshare. A large launcher can share a mission between dozens of satellites and crush the price per kilogram. SPACE For MIURA 5, Spectrum or Maia, beating this model head-on on price alone would be difficult, so the product sold must be different.
PLD SPACE must sell something other than kilograms
This is probably where part of the value proposition of MIURA 5 lies, a rideshare satellite shares the schedule and some of the orbital constraints of the main launcher. A dedicated launch, on the contrary, offers a controlled date, an orbit adapted to the mission, and a faster reaction capacity.
For a commercial operator, this flexibility has an economic value, while for a State, it has a strategic value.
The rise in military needs is transforming the notion of responsive launch: in the event of loss, interference or destruction of a satellite, the ability to quickly return a payload to orbit becomes a component of resilience.
This is where the speeches of PLD SPACE, the ESA or the EIB on “sovereign” and “resilient” access to space take on a concrete dimension. The 30 million euro venture debt loan granted in April by the EIB to PLD SPACE was explicitly intended to support capacities intended for civil, commercial, but also defense uses.
