London space intelligence company Spaceflux has closed a £3.5 million extension to its seed round, taking total funding to £9 million. The capital will fund global expansion of its AI-powered space surveillance platform.
The extension was led by existing investor Blackfinch Ventures, with continued backing from Foresight Group and the UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund (UKI2S), managed by Future Planet Capital. UKI2S is a government-backed fund whose partners include the UK Space Agency and the Ministry of Defence.
The round also brings in Tokyo-based SPARX Asset Management through its Space Frontiers Fund II. SPARX is the first international institutional investor on Spaceflux's cap table, marking a deliberate push into the Japanese market.
What does Spaceflux do?
Founded in 2022 and headquartered in London with operations in Italy, Spaceflux provides Space Domain Awareness (SDA) services to allied governments, defence agencies, and commercial satellite operators. It runs a proprietary network of optical sensors across five continents, feeding data into an AI platform called Cortex.
The company tracks objects in orbit and tells governments what is moving, where, and what it might be doing. With over 35,000 trackable objects in Earth orbit, this kind of intelligence is increasingly treated as critical national infrastructure.
What will the £9 million be used for?
CEO and co-founder Dr Marco Rocchetto said the round reflects a shift from early growth to operational scale. The funding will accelerate three things: expansion of the Cortex platform, rollout of new Pattern of Life analytics products, and sovereign deployments for allied governments.
"This funding round validates the scale of Spaceflux's credibility, sovereign-grade technology, and transition from early growth to operational scale," Dr Rocchetto said. "Bringing in SPARX as a new Japanese investor, alongside continued support from our existing backers, is a clear signal that the demand for allied space intelligence is global."
Why is this round significant for UK deep tech?
The funding sits on top of a run of major contract wins. Spaceflux secured all three multi-year UK Government space surveillance and tracking contracts under the National Space Operations Centre programme, awarded by the UK Space Agency and the UK Ministry of Defence. The company was also selected by Canadian firm MDA Space for Canada's Surveillance of Space 2 programme, is a NATO DIANA participant, and recently demonstrated cislunar tracking during NASA's Artemis II mission.
For UK founders, the playbook here is becoming recognisable. Sovereign capability, government anchor contracts, then a follow-on seed extension with strategic international money. Spaceflux now sits alongside other UK space-tech names like SatVu, which raised $30 million earlier this year.
Who is joining the Spaceflux board?
Spaceflux has appointed General Sir Christopher Michael Deverell, KCB, MBE, to its board. Sir Chris served as Commander of the UK's Joint Forces Command and as a member of the UK Chiefs of Staff Committee from 2016 to 2019. A board hire like this is not cosmetic for a company selling to allied defence customers. It signals credibility to the buyers Spaceflux now needs to scale into.
What this means for UK founders
Sovereign technology is becoming a fundable category in its own right, and government anchor contracts are now a credible route to commercial scale. The UK secured second place globally in tech funding for 2025, and rounds like this show why deep tech is a meaningful part of that number.
For founders thinking about founder-market fit, Spaceflux is a useful case. A technical co-founder with sector depth, a defensible AI platform, and a clear allied-government customer profile from day one. The company has stayed in London for four years rather than relocating to the US, alongside other UK space companies like Optalysys, which secured $23M for photonic computing.
We will update this story as further details emerge on Spaceflux's international expansion plans.
Building a UK deep tech startup or curious how to position for government contracts? Join The Tech Founders community.
Related guides:
