The startup, founded three years ago to produce a new class of high-power satellites, has raised $250 million to ramp up production at its Southern California plant.
Company, named K2announced the cash infusion on Thursday. K2's Series C fundraising round was led by Redpoint Ventures, with additional funding from investment firms in the US, UK and Germany. K2 has raised more than $400 million since its founding in 2022 and is preparing to launch its first major demonstration mission next year, officials said.
K2 is aiming to take advantage of the coming abundance of heavy-lift and super-heavy launch capacity, with SpaceX's Starship expected to begin deploying satellites as early as next year. Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket has launched twice this year and will fly more in 2026 as engineers develop even greater New Glenn with additional engines and greater payload capacity.
This trend toward larger rockets is highlighted by other launch vehicles such as SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, United Launch Alliance's Vulcan, and new vehicles from companies such as Rocket Lab, Relativity Space and Firefly Aerospace. K2's founders believe satellites will evolve in a similar way, reversing the trend of smaller spacecraft in recent years to reach emerging markets such as space computing and data processing.
Mega, then Giga
K2 is developing two classes of satellites— Mega and Giga— that it will be built in a 180,000-square-foot plant in Torrance, California. The company's first Mega-class satellite is called Gravitas. It is scheduled to launch in March 2026 on a Falcon 9 rocket. In orbit, Gravitas will test several systems that are fundamental to K2's growth strategy. One of these is a 20-kilowatt Hall-effect motor, which K2 says will be four times more powerful than any such motor in use today. Gravitas will also deploy dual solar panels capable of generating 20 kilowatts of power.
“Gravitas brings together our entire stack for the first time,” said Karan Kunjur, co-founder and CEO of K2, in a company press release. “We are validating the architecture in space, from high-voltage power and large solar arrays to our pointing and control algorithms and a 20 kW Hall thruster, and we will scale based on measured performance.”
