Open Cosmos’s €300M Raise Signals Europe’s Shift Toward Sovereign Space Infrastructure

Europe’s space investment surge is becoming visible in two connected areas: private companies are raising larger rounds to manufacture satellites and operate services, while governments are pooling resources for secure military communications. Open Cosmos’s €300 million raise is a prominent commercial example; the updated Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) agreement is the allied-security counterpart. Together, they point to a European push for more assured access to communications and Earth-observation capabilities—though not to near-term parity with the United States. 192

Open Cosmos is funding manufacturing and services together

Open Cosmos announced €300 million in funding on September 14, 2026. The round included Lightrock, ETF Partners, Institut Català de Finances and Entrepreneurs First, alongside other investors. The company said it will use the capital to expand satellite manufacturing and accelerate real-time intelligence and connectivity services. 19

The significance is not simply the size of the raise. Open Cosmos is pairing satellite production with service layers:

• ConnectedCosmos for secure communications;
• OpenConstellation for Earth-observation infrastructure; and
• data and intelligence services built on top of its satellite systems. 2125

That model matters because governments and enterprises increasingly need usable, dependable capabilities rather than one-off satellite missions. Capital for manufacturing, constellations and data delivery can help a company turn spacecraft into an operating infrastructure business.

European space-tech funding has accelerated sharply

Open Cosmos is part of a wider financing upswing. Dealroom reports that European space-tech startups raised $2.0 billion in the first half of 2026, exceeding the $1.3 billion raised in all of 2025. Its full-year projection is $4.0 billion, a 196% increase on the 2025 total. 38

The figures should not be read as evidence that every European space startup has equal access to capital. Funding is increasingly concentrated in larger scale-up rounds: one analysis of Dealroom data found that 58% of funding over the trailing four quarters went to rounds of $100 million or more. 47 The pattern nevertheless suggests that investors are more willing to finance production capacity and operational services after companies have moved beyond early technical validation.

WGS-12 shows the security case for collective procurement

Commercial investment is only one part of the story. On September 12, the U.S. Department of the Air Force announced an updated multilateral WGS memorandum of understanding covering the production, operations and support of WGS-12, the 12th satellite in the Wideband Global SATCOM constellation. The agreement includes Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland and the United Kingdom. 2

WGS provides wideband communications for U.S. forces and allies. WGS-12 is intended to add secure, resilient capacity, and reporting on its contract says it will incorporate a Protected Tactical SATCOM Prototype payload designed to expand anti-jam tactical communications in contested environments. 814

This is not European space autonomy in a narrow sense: WGS remains a U.S.-led system. But it demonstrates how allied procurement can provide partner countries with access to protected capacity that would be difficult and costly for each nation to build independently.

What these developments mean for Europe

The common theme is strategic resilience. Open Cosmos is building commercial capacity for satellite-enabled intelligence and communications; WGS-12 is a multinational defense program for protected connectivity. Both respond to demand for space systems that customers can rely on for sensitive government, security and enterprise uses.

Europe’s position is improving, but the distinction between momentum and leadership is important. PitchBook reported that Europe accounted for 20.8% of global space-tech deal value in the first half of 2026 and had moved into second place, yet it remained significantly behind North America. The report also notes that a large share of Europe’s funding increase came from a small number of very large deals. 33

The more defensible conclusion is that Europe is becoming a stronger provider of selectively sovereign or allied space capabilities—not that it is about to match the United States’ commercial and defense-space scale. For buyers of satellite connectivity, Earth observation and secure communications, that growing European industrial base may mean more options, more regional control and a deeper pool of allied capacity.