New funding for Kepler and Wyvern headline busy month in Canadian space tech

It’s been an eventful month for Canadian space tech as companies like Wyvern, Kepler Communications, Mission Control, and Volta Space Technologies prepare for take off with new partnerships and rounds of funding.

Wyvern has expanded over the years from four founders to 33 employees across Canada and the US.

Edmonton-based satellite imaging startup Wyvern secured an $8.2 million CAD ($6 million USD) strategic investment round led by Maryland-based venture firm Squadra Ventures. Participants in the round included returning investors Uncork Capital and Y Combinator, as well as new investors including the University of Alberta Innovation Fund, Accelerate Fund III, and Brent Perrot. 

Wyvern said the funding will be used to penetrate the United States (US) market, adding that the investment underscores the growing demand for imaging solutions in the forestry, agriculture, energy, defense, and environmental monitoring sectors. 

Founded in 2018, Wyvern’s proprietary technology is a compact hyperspectral satellite imaging camera that identifies wavelengths of light imperceptible to the human eye, allowing it to identify various materials on Earth from space. 

The startup has expanded over the years from a team of four founders— CEO Chris Robson, COO Kurtis Broda, verification and validation lead Callie Lissinna, and vice president of research and development Kristen Cote—to 33 employees that are spread across Canada and the US. 

Wyvern last raised a $9.45 million CAD ($7 million USD) “seed-plus” round after graduating from Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 cohort. Earlier this year, Wyvern also secured funding from PrairiesCan and Emissions Reduction Alberta to demonstrate the use of its technology in agriculture, wildfire mitigation, and methane-leak detection. 

Meanwhile, Toronto-based internet-for-space company Kepler Communications has received a $20 million investment through the federal government’s Strategic Innovation Fund. The Ministry of Innovation, Science and Industry said the funding will support the development of Kepler’s Aether constellation, an in-orbit, high-speed connectivity network. Kepler last raised $122.7 million CAD ($92 million USD) in Series C funding last year to launch more high-speed space-to-earth satellites. 

The funding comes shortly after Kepler inked multiple partnerships with international space agencies. Earlier this month, Kepler and NASA agreed to exchange information and explore demonstration opportunities under NASA’s communications services project. The partnership will provide NASA insights into Kepler’s space data-relay capabilities, as well as see collaboration through current and future on-orbit capabilities. 

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) also hatched an agreement this week that made way for multiple Canadian companies, including Keplar, to work with the European Space Agency (ESA). As part of the agreement, Kepler was selected as the prime contractor for the ESA’s HydRON-DS mission, which looks to use laser communications to provide high-performance internet in space for government and commercial users. 

Other Canadian companies benefiting from this deal include Sherbrooke-based SBQuantum, St. John’s, Nfld.-based C-CORE, and ABB’s Analytical Business Unit in Québec City.  

RELATED: Space-tech startup Mission Control shoots for the Moon (and Mars) with funding from GreenSky

Ottawa-based software startup Mission Control also nabbed an international partnership this week, agreeing to explore the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in space with American satellite company Spire. As part of the agreement, Spire will build and operate a satellite that will provide images of the Earth for analysis by Mission Control’s onboard AI algorithms. The mission is meant to showcase how AI can be used onboard satellites over a long period of time to generate insights in real-time.

In September 2023, Mission Control announced the initial close of a $3.25 million CAD equity seed round, led by Toronto’s GreenSky Ventures, as it began bringing its core software platform to market. 

Finally, Montréal-based Volta Space Technologies emerged from stealth last week. The startup is creating a power utility for the operations on the moon with its LightGrid architecture, which transmits power through lasers to receivers on the moon’s surface. 

Volta said it is currently backed by American early-stage venture capital firms MaC Ventures and Industrious Ventures, and that it has received contracts, grants, and awards from the US Department of Defense, NASA, the ESA, and the CSA.

Volta’s offering is meant to help its potential customer’s robotic assets survive long lunar nights and operate in permanently shadowed regions, which Volta called a critical challenge in the lunar market.  

With files from Isabelle Kirkwood. 

Feature image courtesy NASA via Unsplash.