Spire Global

History

Spire was originally known as NanoSatisfi Inc., founded in June 2012 in San Francisco by International Space University graduates Peter Platzer, Jeroen Cappaert and Joel Spark as part of ArduSat, a project aiming to 'democratize access to space'. Early prototypes were tested via high-altitude balloon, partly financed through a KickStarter that raised $106,330. In November 2012, the company signed an agreement with NanoRacks for the deployment of two satellites in what was to become 'the first U.S. Commercial Satellite Deployment from the International Space Station'.

To raise capital, the company incubated with Lemnos Labs and raised $1.5M in a seed round by Shasta Ventures, Lemnos Labs, E-merge, Grishin Robotics, and Beamonte Investments in February 2013. On November 19, 2013, both ArduSat-1 and ArduSat-X (1U CubeSats) were successfully released from the Kibo Experiment Module of the International Space Station. Following this, Spire engineers opted to focus on 3U nanosatellites, launching the first iteration of its standard satellite format, Lemur-1, with the Dnepr rocket in June 2014.

In July 2014, Spire announced a $25M Series A funding round led by RRE Ventures. The following month, ArduSat was spun off to focus exclusively on educational technology. Spire opened its Singapore office in late 2014.

Satellites

Spire's Lemur satellites are 3U nanosatellites, a format adopted after the initial 1U ArduSat experiments. The company launched its first Lemur-2 satellites in September 2015 via the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-XL, making Spire the first US-based operator to launch from India. That launch inaugurated the Spire tradition of letting employees name each satellite; the first three Lemurs were christened Joel, Peter and Jeroen after the co-founders.

Spire opened a full-fledged cleanroom for satellite manufacturing in Glasgow in December 2015, enabling quick production of a first batch of four nanosatellites (launched in September 2015) and then eight Lemur satellites ahead of an Atlas V launch in March 2016. That launch saw Spire cross the line of 10 simultaneously operating satellites in June 2016. Two additional launches in 2016 put the total satellites sent to space that year at sixteen. Over 2017, the company launched 6 missions, yielding an additional 36 operated satellites despite the critical failure of a Soyuz vehicle carrying 10 Lemurs in November.

In early 2018, Spire participated in the second flight of Rocket Lab's Electron rocket and was selected for Arianespace's Vega Proof of Concept. It participated in a total of 7 launch missions in 2018, yielding 28 new operated satellites. On April 1, 2019, Spire launched its 100th Lemur satellite. By the time of its stock market debut on August 17, 2021, Spire had more than 110 satellites in orbit.

The company did not expect to grow its constellation, as it did not see 'any customer demand' that would require a larger constellation, but would continue to build and launch satellites on a three-year hardware replacement cycle.