Thu Dec 12

Fleet Space Closes A$150M Series D with A$800M+ Valuation

Written by: PR Newswire Asia - Daily Bulletin Au RSS

Funding from Teachers' Venture Growth and Other Investors to Scale Exploration Solutions Powered by Space & AI for Faster Energy Transition Mineral Discovery

ADELAIDE, Australia, Dec. 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Fleet Space Technologies (Fleet Space), Australia's leading space exploration company, today announced the closing of a A$150M Series D funding round, led by Teachers' Venture Growth (TVG), the late-stage venture and growth investment arm of Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, and joined by existing investors Blackbird Ventures, Hostplus, Horizons Ventures, Artesian Venture Partners, and Alumni Ventures. The new investment will be used to expand the capabilities of Fleet Space's global end-to-end exploration platform, ExoSphere, to accelerate the discovery of critical minerals needed for Earth's clean energy future.

"The ability to meet the rapidly increasing demand for critical minerals presents a significant challenge to achieving global net-zero targets," said Rick Prostko, Senior Managing Director, Teachers' Venture Growth. "Current mineral exploration methods are inadequate for efficient discovery and production. Fleet Space addresses this with advanced 3D subsurface imaging and AI analysis tools, which have the potential to sustainably transform the industry. We are proud to support the multidisciplinary team at Fleet Space in their efforts to accelerate the global energy transition."

"We're proud to continue our investment in Fleet Space, building on many years of history," added Niki Scevak, Partner at Blackbird. "Quite simply, the discovery of critical minerals must exponentially increase if we are to electrify our society by 2050 and breakthroughs, like ExoSphere, are needed to make it happen."

Real-Time Exploration Powered by Space & AIFounded by former propulsion engineer at the European Space Agency, Flavia Tata Nardini, and aerospace entrepreneur, Matt Pearson, Fleet Space was created to harness the capabilities of space exploration technologies for a new wave of solutions that can accelerate decarbonisation and the global energy transition. By integrating Fleet Space's satellites in LEO, smart seismic sensors, and AI into an end-to-end solution, Fleet Space's ExoSphere technology streamlines the acquisition, processing, and integration of exploration datasets, providing the global mining industry with high-quality targeting insights faster than ever before while minimising environmental impact.

"There are two versions of the future. One where we bend the latest advances in space, AI, and big data towards building a clean energy future and another where we risk net-zero targets falling out of reach as the rate of new discoveries of energy transition minerals continues to decline," added Flavia Tata Nardini, CEO & Co-Founder of Fleet Space. "With ExoSphere, we have combined these technologies into an end-to-end platform that seamlessly integrates with and compliments modern mining operations - making the frontier of exploration technology accessible to the global mining industry within a single workflow. This is a fundamental step to unlock humanity's potential for making extraordinary discoveries with less environmental impact."

Exponential GrowthToday's announcement caps a period of exponential growth for Fleet Space. In the past year, Fleet Space has:

Expanded the company's global footprint to the US, Canada, Chile, and Luxembourg with 130+ employees worldwide to support the deployment of ExoSphere for over 40+ industry leading exploration companies across five continents.
Deployed ExoSphere to accelerate exploration in some of the most prospective areas on Earth with industry leaders like Rio Tinto and Barrick Gold- while also delivering the world's largest real-time 3D imaging survey in Australia's Macquarie Arc and the world's highest real-time 3D imaging survey in Chile's Atacama region.
Launched ExoSphere Discovery, Fleet Space's breakthrough AI-powered exploration technology which uses proprietary multimodal AI models to predict opportunity zones and targets with potential mineralisation - a pioneering advance for the use of AI in mineral exploration met with widespread demand in the industry.

"This funding is not just a testament to Fleet Space's growth, strong investor confidence, and sustained innovation in core technologies needed to address dual challenges of climate change and mineral exploration. It's a signal that in a period of turbulent macroeconomic conditions, the shared commitment to build technologies needed for Earth's clean energy future combined with solid business execution can attract the right partners," said Federico Tata Nardini, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Investment Officer of Fleet Space. "We are proud to be among the few companies globally to close a Series D round in the context of reduced activity in the venture ecosystem and look forward to furthering our vision, strategic initiatives, and roadmap to scale the business to the next level."

Technology Roadmap for Explorers of New WorldsWhile advancing the capabilities of data-driven exploration on Earth with ExoSphere, Fleet Space has also laid the technology foundation to rapidly accelerate the exploration of new worlds. The smart seismic sensors used as part of Fleet Space's terrestrial ExoSphere system represent the technological precursor for its lunar variant – SPIDER – which will be deployed on the Moon in 2026 to enhance humanity's understanding of the lunar subsurface. Collaborating with MIT Media Lab's Space Exploration Initiative, Fleet Space is also helping to advance off-world research needed for the planning of future missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Additionally, Fleet Space unveiled a cost-effective, resilient full duplex SATCOM system using microsatellites and reprogrammed Centauri-4 to become the world's smallest voice-enabled satellite.

"The convergence of innovation in space, AI, and 3D subsurface imaging represents a foundational pillar of the core technology set that will enable humanity to build permanent research stations on the Moon, Mars, and beyond," said Matt Pearson, Chief Exploration Officer at Fleet Space. "The flywheel we've created by continuously enhancing the subsurface understanding of Earth through the global deployment of ExoSphere simultaneously drives advances in the technology needed to build highly scalable, data-driven exploration systems for new worlds. A bold new chapter in the history of space exploration is about to begin and we are positioned to play a significant role as humanity boldly ventures deeper into our solar system."

About Fleet Space TechnologiesFleet Space Technologies, Australia's leading space exploration company, is revolutionizing critical mineral discovery with its end-to-end mineral exploration solution, ExoSphere, which combines satellite connectivity, 3D multiphysics, and AI to image mineral systems in real-time. Over 40 leading exploration companies like Rio Tinto, Barrick Gold, and Core Lithium have used ExoSphere's real-time 3D subsurface imaging on projects across five continents. Due to global demand for ExoSphere, Fleet Space's international footprint has expanded to the US, Canada, Chile, and Luxembourg with over 130+ employees, representing 37 nationalities, worldwide. In 2024, Fleet Space was recognised as the winner of the Innovation category at the Mining Technology Excellence Awards and received the Climate Impact Technology Award by the Banksia Foundation. To learn more about ExoSphere, please reach out to the Fleet Space team here.

About Teachers' Venture GrowthTeachers' Venture Growth (TVG) focuses on late-stage venture and growth equity investments in cutting-edge technology companies worldwide. We partner with founders with bold missions, looking to expand their product offering, scale geographically, and become the leaders in their markets. We bring long-term thinking and active investing to help build better businesses and a better world. We think globally and act locally through our direct presence across Asia, North America and Europe.

TVG is part of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board (Ontario Teachers'), a global investor with net assets of CAD 255.8 billion as at June 30, 2024. We invest in more than 50 countries in a broad array of assets including public and private equities, fixed income, credit, commodities, natural resources, infrastructure, real estate and venture growth to deliver retirement income for 340,000 working members and pensioners.

Our more than 450 investment professionals operate in key financial centres around the world and bring deep expertise in a broad range of sectors and industries. We are a fully funded defined benefit pension plan and have earned an annual total-fund net return of 9.3% since the plan's founding in 1990. At Ontario Teachers', we don't just invest to make a return, we invest to shape a better future for the teachers we serve, the businesses we back, and the world we live in. For more information, visit otpp.com/teachersventuregrowth and follow us on LinkedIn.