Photo by Nara Space

Nara Space Technology has completed a $14.5 million Series B funding round. The South Korean start-up, which specializes in small satellite manufacturing and data analytics, has now raised approximately $24.3 million following earlier pre-Series A and Series A rounds.

The latest funding round saw participation from three new investors: Samsung Securities, Shinhan Venture Investment, and JB Woori Capital. In addition, six of the seven existing investors, including the Korea Development Bank, T-Investment, POSCO Technology Investment, Hana Ventures, Hi Investment Partners, and BNK Venture Investment, increased their investments. With this new injection of capital, Nara Space plans to expand its ‘Observer’ Earth Observation (EO) satellite constellation and accelerate the development of its upcoming methane-monitoring satellite under the NarSha Project.

Last November, Nara Space achieved a significant milestone by successfully developing and launching Observer-1A, becoming the first South Korean startup to launch a commercial 16U small EO satellite. Observer-1A has been capturing images of major cities worldwide and continues to perform daily observation missions in LEO.

“With this positive round of follow-up investments, we plan to focus on launching the Observer-1B twin satellite and further lay the foundations for our satellite mass production line. Our goal is to operate a cluster of 100 small satellites within the next five years to provide real-time global Earth monitoring services across different sensors and wavelengths,” Jae-Pil Park, CEO of Nara Space, said in a statement.