Morpheus raises $15 million in Series A+ round

Correction: Morpheus Space is ramping up to producing 100 GO-2 propulsion systems annually.

SAN FRANCISCO — Morpheus Space raised $15 million in a Series A+ funding round announced Feb. 5.

“This funding is intended to accelerate our production as we focus on bringing our GO-2 Electric Propulsion System fully to market,” Morpheus CEO Kevin Lausten told SpaceNews. “It’s about getting the product in the hands of our customers.”

Alpine Space Ventures, which led Morpheus’ $28 million Series A round in 2022, also led the recent A+ round. Participants included the European Investment Fund, Lavrock Ventures, Morpheus Ventures, Pallas Ventures and Vsquared Ventures.

The additional funding will help Morpheus increase production in its Reloaded Facility in Dresden, Germany, which is ramping up to manufacturing 100 GO-2 propulsion systems annually.

“It allows us to hire higher additional staff and get additional equipment to streamline that production process, Lausten said. “We are also investing in sales and marketing to ensure that our go-to-market activity is fully funded.”

Global Demand

Decreasing launch costs have led to increasingly ambitious plans for individual satellites and constellations. At the same time, “regulatory policies are driving increased focus on collision avoidance and active deorbiting, leading to an increased demand for products that can address a wide range of use cases across different satellite sizes,” Lausten said.

GO-2 provides primary propulsion for satellites with a mass of 10 to 250 kilograms. Meanwhile, integrators of larger spacecraft are looking at “multiple types of propulsion for different use cases,” Lausten said. “Ours can be used for very precise maneuvers, allowing for things like precision pointing for Earth-observation systems.”

“Growing orbital congestion and the race for dominance in orbit are making maneuverability a strategic necessity, Bulent Altan, Alpine Space Ventures founding partner, said in a statement. “What’s needed now are scalable, cost-efficient propulsion systems designed for dynamic space operations. Morpheus Space is uniquely positioned to meet this demand and solve one of the sector’s most urgent bottlenecks.”

Sovereign Systems

Morpheus aims to satisfy growing demand for propulsion systems in Europe and the United States. Students from the Technical University of Dresden founded Morpheus in Germany in 2018. In 2021, Morpheus established a U.S. office in El Segundo, California.

“As a global company, we’re able to support a wide range of customer demands when it comes to sovereign space interest,” Lausten said.  

German plans to invest 35 billion euros ($41 billion) in military space programs over the next five years has created “a groundswell of participation in Germany, specifically, for satellite capabilities,” Lausten said. “But we’re a U.S. company supporting smallsat constellation providers in the U.S. as well.”