Ramon Space, Inc., a space computing infrastructure company closed a $26 million strategic investment round Wednesday, according to the company.
The Los Altos-based company, which is known as Ramon.Space, develops what it dubs as “space -resilient” storage, processing and communicating systems — computing systems, data chips and operating systems — to allow inter-satellite and direct-to-Earth communications.
“The way we view that space market is going to evolve and be one of the biggest economies for the next decade,” Ramon.Space’s CEO Avi Shabtai said in an interview with the Business Journal. “There is a high demand for building space infrastructure and energy in mankind in general is looking how to use space for the benefits of life on Earth and of course, beyond. I think the mission of being at the forefront of this and enable this to happen is [what] innovates and excite us.”
The deep-tech company has developed three products that have been used in missions by NASA, the Israel Space Agency and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, to name a few. The "Nu" line includes the NuPod, an operating system; NuStream, a 1TB storage chip; and NuBox, an all-in-one computing system. According to the company's website, all devices are equipped with in-orbit upgrade capabilities. In order to endure the radiation out in orbit, the company has developed an in-house radiation-hardened technology to support its products going into space, according to Shabtai.
The 75-person team has been able to send products up in over 50 space missions with zero failures, according to the company’s website.
Though new competitors are entering the space-tech sector, Shabtai said what keeps his company ahead of new players is “space heritage.”
“[Ramon.Space is] vertically integrated, meaning we are developing our own semiconductors, our own chips, and that gives us significant advantage against other companies or newcomers,” he said. “We are a smaller company. It can be a big advantage if you want to move fast, you want to innovate, if you want to solve problems quickly. And if you combine the factors of space heritage, vertical integration of fast movement and innovation, we think we're in a very unique position when you compare [Ramon.Space] to other market players.”
Ramon.Space has been around since 2004, but didn’t raise its first round of formal funding until 2021. In total, the company has raised $43.5 million in venture funding.
The new round was co-led by Ingrasys, a subsidiary of Foxconn Technology Group, and the Strategic Development Fund, an investment vehicle run by the United Arab Emirates’ sovereign investment vertical. Grove Ventures, Deep Insight and UMC Capital participated in the round.
According to Shabtai, this round’s funds will go towards research and development, marking verticals and technology testing.
This round also comes a week after the company announced an agreement with Foxonn Technology Group to manufacture its computing products in Taiwan.
The company currently has engineering developments in Israel, according to Shabtai.
