Dark was to symbolize the industrial maturity of French New Space. Four years after its creation, the startup which aimed to become the “GIGN of space” died out, due to lack of a lasting institutional and financial anchor. His journey recounts the fragility of an ecosystem still without clear doctrine, at the crossroads of civil, military and private.
The illusion of spatial sovereignty
In 2021, France dreamed of a new generation of orbital power. The France 2030 program promised to bring about the emergence of a “constellation of champions” around CNES, the DGA and historic industrialists. The creation of Space Command marked a doctrinal turning point. The State claimed to want to accelerate the arrival of agile actors, capable of responding to the growing militarization of the orbit.
It is in this context that was born Darkfounded by Guillaume Orvain And Clyde Laheynetwo engineers from MBDA. Their ambition is to develop a complete system for intercepting and disintegrating space debris, called Interceptor. A project at the crossroads of robotics, defense and orbital sustainability. In 2024, the company announced its installation in Bordeaux-Mérignac to build its testing center.
A year later, everything stops.
An ecosystem without a doctrinal backbone
The Dark case illustrates a structural imbalance, France has engineers, startups and capital, but not yet employment doctrine of New Space. CNES, the DGA and the DGAC are pursuing complementary but still poorly coordinated approaches. Despite recent efforts, notably via France 2030, AID and Space Command, France does not yet have a clear architecture linking civil innovation, military needs and orbital regulation. The result is a fragmented ecosystem, spread between Toulouse, Paris and Bordeaux, where startups struggle to anchor themselves sustainably in structuring programs.
This fragmentation has a cost. Space access (Exotrail, Latitude), orbital surveillance (Look Up Space, Aldoria) or intervention (Dark) startups share the same handicap: the absence of a multi-year contract, integration into public purchasing programs and long-term industrial support. In practice, they depend on subsidies or private donations, without a clear institutional outlet.
Dark sums it up in his press release:
“Continuing without anchoring would have meant transforming Dark into a fragile model dependent on a single client.”
dark
This observation highlights the absence of an operational framework allowing these companies to become strategic partners of the State, and not simple one-off service providers.
Foreign models: when doctrine precedes the market
Elsewhere, the dynamic is opposite, UNITED STATESthere Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), In-Q-Tel Or AFWERX act as a bridge between private innovation and military needs. Startups like Anduril Or True Anomaly benefit from multi-year contracts and advance financing, well before going to market. Their technologies are integrated into the employment doctrine from their design. At United KingdomTHE National Space Office supports dual-use programs through structured partnerships with the MoD and UKSA. At Japan, Astroscale illustrates the opposite model of Dark: born from an alliance between private capital and support from JAXA, the startup has become a world reference in orbital maintenance.
These examples have one thing in common which is that the doctrine precedes the market. It defines a need, structures public demand and secures funding. In France, this articulation remains embryonic.
An absent industrial doctrine
The French problem is not only about investment, Bpifrance, Eurazeo, Karista or Frst finance space startups, but the capital remains short-termist. There is a lack of a sovereign investment vehicle dedicated to dual space technologies, capable of supporting long industrial cycles. The French model remains dominated by subsidies and one-off orders and not by patient capital nor by the public-private co-production.
Added to this is a cultural blockage, the French space ecosystem remains institutional. Startups like Dark are disturbing: too military for civilian investors, too private for the State. The result is a “gray zone” where ambitious projects find neither recurring financing, nor doctrinal integration, nor long-term outlet.
What Dark Leaves Behind
Dark will have lasted four years, with a team of international engineers and recognized know-how.
Its technologies and intellectual property remain in France, and several of its engineers have joined industrial players in the sector.
Created in 2021 by Guillaume Orvain And Clyde LaheyneDark had raised 5 million dollars from his first year withEurazeo And Frstbefore welcoming the American fund in 2024 Long Journey Venturesled by Arielle Zuckerbergduring an extension of 6 million euros. This capital was to finance the development of its platform Interceptor and its installation in Bordeaux-Mérignac. Despite support from Cnes and several R&D contracts, the company has not found the industrial relay nor the state anchoring necessary to scale up. In total, Dark will have raised approximately 10.5 million euros before announcing the orderly cessation of its activities
