Somewhere above Earth right now, a spacecraft the size of a mini-fridge is waiting to prove it can extend the life of satellites. Its maker just got $100M to build hundreds more.
image from grok
Starfish Space closed a $100M+ Series B to scale production of its Otter spacecraft line for GEO satellite servicing, having secured contracts with SES for life extension missions and a $37.5M Space Force award. The company has demonstrated technical viability through the orbiting Otter Pup 2 and is scaling from ~90 employees to ~130+ while building multiple vehicles simultaneously—a manufacturing challenge distinct from software iteration. The dual-use business model (commercial GEO servicing alongside government missions) positions Starfish to potentially reshape satellite economics by converting defunct spacecraft from liabilities into serviceable assets.
Starfish Space Has the Contracts. Now It Needs to Build Fast Enough to Keep Them.
Starfish Space closed a Series B round this week raising more than $100 million. The company announced it April 7, and the number that matters is not the headline figure. It is the roughly 90 employees currently on payroll, the plan to hire 40 to 50 more in the next year, and the fact that multiple Otter spacecraft are already in production with paying customers waiting.
Seattle-based Starfish designs the Otter line for in-space servicing of other spacecraft. The vehicles are built to extend the lives of satellites in geostationary orbit and to deorbit defunct ones. The company raised $29 million in November 2024. This round, led by Point72 Ventures with Activate Capital and Shield Capital co-leading, is a different kind of milestone: it is the money to scale, not the money to prove the concept works.
The proof-of-concept is already done, at least in part. Otter Pup 2 launched last June and is currently operating in orbit. The original plan was to dock with a partner spacecraft, but that partner withdrew. Starfish has since found a replacement partner and expects the docking demonstration to happen. The company says lessons from Otter Pup 2 can be uplinked as software updates to future Otter spacecraft even after launch. That matters because the entire value proposition of on-orbit servicing depends on software that can adapt without a physical mission to repair.
The customer list is where the story shifts from startup to infrastructure. Starfish's first two contracts are with satellite operator SES for a geostationary orbit life extension mission, and with the U.S. Space Force under a Strategic Funding Increase agreement. Both are real customers with real spacecraft. The Space Force contract was worth up to $37.5 million. SES operates a fleet. These are not demo missions.
The dual-use framing is not marketing. Starfish is building for both GEO and LEO, and the company explicitly frames this as a feature: lessons from government missions improve commercial ones, and vice versa. That is a supply chain and operational infrastructure story. If satellite servicing becomes routine, it changes the economics of the entire geostationary orbital slot system. A satellite that can be refueled or have its orbit corrected is not a $500 million write-off when its station-keeping fuel runs out. It is an asset with a service contract.
The production scaling problem is real. Building spacecraft is not software. Hiring 40 to 50 people in a year, producing multiple Otter vehicles simultaneously, and maintaining mission operations for multiple concurrent missions are different disciplines. The company has about 90 people now. The gap between proving a technology and manufacturing it at scale is where most space hardware companies stumble.
Chris Morales of Point72 Ventures put it plainly: Starfish has made steady progress toward practical on-orbit servicing, and early traction with defense and commercial customers shows these capabilities are becoming increasingly relevant to space operations and national security.
The first Otter launches later this year. The customer for the first mission has not been disclosed. The second mission is already contracted. The question is whether the factory can keep up.
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Research completed — 7 sources registered. Starfish Space raised $100M+ Series B (April 7, 2026), led by Point72, co-led by Activate Capital and Shield Capital. Company already has $67M+ in com
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