Investors commit a quarter-billion dollars to a startup building the next era of “Giga” satellites
A young company, founded three years ago to produce a new generation of high-power satellites, has secured $250 million to accelerate production at its Southern California facility.
The startup, called K2, disclosed the fundraising on Thursday. Its Series C round was led by Redpoint Ventures, with participation from other investors across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Since launching in 2022, K2 has raised more than $400 million in total and executives say a major demonstration mission is planned for next year.
K2 is positioning itself to capitalize on what it sees as a coming surge in heavy- and super-heavy-lift launch capacity, anticipating that SpaceX’s Starship could begin deploying satellites as early as next year. Blue Origin’s New Glenn has flown twice this year and is expected to fly again in 2026, even as plans mature for an even larger variant with more engines and greater lift.
This push toward bigger rockets is mirrored by other launch providers, including SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan, and newcomers from Rocket Lab, Relativity Space, and Firefly Aerospace. K2’s leadership believes the satellite market will follow a parallel trajectory—shifting from small to larger platforms to serve evolving demand areas like in-space computing and data processing.
From Mega to Giga
K2 plans two satellite classes—Mega and Giga—and will manufacture them at an 180,000-square-foot facility in Torrance, California. The company’s inaugural Mega Class satellite, Gravitas, is slated for a March 2026 liftoff aboard a Falcon 9.
Once in orbit, Gravitas will test several core technologies central to K2’s growth plan. These include a 20-kilowatt Hall-effect thruster, which K2 claims will be four times more powerful than any such thruster flown to date, and twin solar arrays capable of delivering 20 kilowatts of power.
“Gravitas represents the first time we’re bringing our entire stack together in space,” said Karan Kunjur, K2’s co-founder and chief executive, in a company press release. “We’ll validate the architecture in orbit—from high-voltage power systems and large solar arrays to our guidance and control software, and a 20 kW Hall thruster—and we’ll scale based on what we learn from the measurements.”
Would you like this rewritten version to emphasize more technical specifics, or to include additional context about the market implications and potential controversies surrounding mega‑satellites and in‑orbit infrastructure?
