LeoLabs’ Costa Rica Radar Facility opened in 2021 (Photo: LeoLabs)

LeoLabs has closed a $65 million Series B financing round, bringing the Space Situational Awareness (SSA) startup’s total funding to more than $100 million. The funding round, announced Thursday, was jointly led by Insight Partners and existing investor Velvet Sea Ventures. Nick Sinai, senior advisor at Insight Partners, will join LeoLabs’ board. 

LeoLabs offers tracking and monitoring and collision avoidance products aimed at keeping Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) safe, as more and more satellites are launched into space. The company recently commenced full operations at a new phased array space radar facility in Costa Rica.

Dan Ceperley, LeoLabs CEO and co-founder said this funding will be used to scale and  build out multiple radar sites concurrently, starting this year. LeoLabs plans to establish a global constellation of ground-based radars. 

Ceperley commented that there is a “data deficit” in LEO as the number of assets in the orbit doubled last year, and is set to double again this year. 

 “LeoLabs is already the largest provider of data for LEO today, and this lead will expand rapidly as we execute on our constellation of radars,” he said. “The legacy government-built SSA infrastructures of the past simply cannot scale to track the new levels of LEO activity, and they have no path to get there. Our market-driven infrastructure is the only viable and scalable way to address this ‘data deficit.’”

LeoLabs won the SATELLITE show’s Startup Space competition in 2018.