IENAI Space’s latest investment round of €3.9 million brings its total funding to €7 million

Together with previous investments, this latest round brings the total funding of IENAI to €7 million. The company has secured a number of Spanish investors, which include Inveready, WA4STEAM, DPM, GED Conexo Ventures, and CDTI, a government backed investor that matches private investment.

Early this year, the Spanish NewSpace company passed two major milestones, which according to the company, were fundamental to the funding round.

First, their electric propulsion system “ATHENA” (adaptable thruster based on electrospray powered by nanotechnology), a 0.5U thruster built for satellites between 3kg and 50kg, successfully fired for almost 400 hours. This constitutes the longest firing (independently verified by ESA) of an ionic-liquid electrospray thruster in Europe. The firing test was part of a successful preliminary design review (PDR) with ESA.

ATHENAS’s solid performances were rounded up with received RFQs (request for quotation), worth a total value of €30 million, from renowned European satellite manufacturers. The company expects to start commercial delivery of its thruster by early 2025.

Second, the beta test of their space mobility and mission analysis & design software tool “360”, for which they had around 30 companies join. The company is now on-boarding startups from various incubation and acceleration programs across Europe as part of their “IRIS program”, in partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS).

The company will use the investment to accelerate reaching the commercial production stage of its propulsion system, expand its client base for their software tools, and open new facilities to accommodate its growing team.