Sydney startup MP Space has achieved one of the local space scene’s largest seed raises to scale local manufacture of spacecraft power systems.
Key Takeaways
- The $23 million seed round was led by Australian venture capital firm Blackbird.
- Seraphim Space, described as the world’s most prolific space investor, has made its first investment in an Australian company.
- Co-founders Jay Manley and Sam Paterson are former Tesla engineers who worked on products including the Powerwall and Model S, X and 3 battery packs.
- The funding will support manufacturing capacity, product development and growth of the company’s Australian engineering team.
Key Background
Founded in January 2024, MP Space develops hardware and software to generate, store and manage power for spacecraft. Their pitch to the recent Cicada Tech 23 conference was that they got into space because they saw it as a $10 billion opportunity and the existing space batteries “kinda suck”.
They want to take what they learnt working on Tesla’s batteries and apply it to satellites, rather than having spacecraft manufacturers make their own bespoke systems in-house.
Manley spent eight years in Tesla’s powertrain and energy engineering teams, including working on Powerwall 2 and 3. Paterson worked on several generations of Tesla battery packs before taking technical programme management roles at Apple, Zoox and Australian biotech manufacturer Vow.
Other investors included Systemiq, Speedinvest and MFV Partners. MP Space says the money will help it expand local manufacturing, broaden its range of power-system platforms and grow its Australian team.
The company is based in Sydney and operates from the NSW Defence and Aerospace Hub at Cicada Innovations.
They might just be building batteries now, Paterson told Tech23, “but that’s not where we land”.
“We start with batteries, we go into powertrain, all the rest of the parts around the batteries, and we’re at the core of the power infrastructure for the space industrialisation.”
He vowed to be to space power what NVIDIA is to data centres.
“The whole game plan here is aggregating volume from constellation players. We already have two constellations as our customers, and there are more in the pipeline. We’re shipping globally today, millions of dollars of revenue, very, very happy with the starting point … It’s an exponential curve and it’s just getting started.”
Blackbird partner Samantha Wong says her funds’ support started with the founders.
“Jay and Sam have gone from solar racecar clubs at uni to industry-leading capability in scalable battery system design, having built Tesla’s Powerwall from electrons to a $10 billion businessline. The same energy management evolution will happen in space and we believe MP Space has a shot at revolutionising this fast-growing industry,” she says.
“In less than two years, MP Space has already delivered a software-defined battery, with one of the highest gravimetric energy densities of any space battery, and will gain flight heritage this month. They are moving with speed and precision in a market that has explosive potential.
Big Number
500+: The number of spacecraft which MP Space has designe its power systems into.
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