Golbriak Space, a space technology company from Tallinn, has brought in EUR 4 million of seed money, according to Invest in Estonia. Join Capital and PhotonVentures led the round together, and Takeoff, an acceleration programme that Plug and Play runs for aerospace and hardware start-ups, added funding.
The company builds terminals that send data by laser between satellites and other platforms that are not on the ground. One product, ERMESAI+, is for use in space; the other, ARES, is for drones and high-altitude platforms. Both rest on one architecture that is set up through software, so the same hardware can serve different networks.
Nicola Garzaniti, the chief executive, and Simone Briatore, the technology chief, founded the firm after it won a Copernicus Masters challenge in 2017. It began in the Tehnopol business park, later moved to Nõmme and has now received the keys to premises in Mustamäe, where it plans to hire engineers and production technicians. Closing this round marks a turning point for Golbriak,
Garzaniti said.
Today the systems carry data at 2.5 Gbps and upwards, and a 10 Gbps version is planned for 2027. Output is counted in tens of terminals a year; the aim is 200 a month and, later, 300 to 400. Invest in Estonia notes that the company reached its present capacity with no outside funding and built the business around customers from the start.
Source: Invest in Estonia, . The text above is our own summary; the words in quotation marks are the source's.
What this means for an Estonian entrepreneur
A founder of a hardware company can read the order of events: customers and a production line that works came first, outside investors came second, and they named exactly those two things as their reason. A company that prepares a round is in a stronger position when the relations between its owners are written down before new investors join.
When investors join an Estonian company next to its founders, the rights of each side are set out in a shareholders' agreement, which we draft. Shareholders' agreement