London spacetech startup Foundational has left stealth with €9.6M in pre-seed funding, betting that precise orbital tracking is about to become essential infrastructure.
Its target is Satellite Laser Ranging, a technique that fires laser pulses from a ground station at a reflector mounted on a satellite and times the light’s return. It can locate an object in orbit to within millimetres, and it remains one of the most exact measuring tools humanity has built. The problem has always been cost, which kept it out of reach at scale.
Foundational’s answer is vertical integration. It builds the satellite retroreflectors, operates automated ground stations and sells the resulting data through a software platform. Owning all three layers is what the company believes turns a research instrument into a commercial service.
The technology descends from Lumi Space, a laser-ranging venture Hira Virdee founded in 2018 with grants from the European and UK space agencies. Foundational, incorporated in 2025 by Virdee and Dave Gooding, is the commercial vehicle built to scale that work.
Demand is coming from a congested low Earth orbit economy. Satellite operators need sharper positioning and trajectory data as debris accumulates, and the company counts constellation operators, aerospace manufacturers, research institutes, the European Space Agency and UK government agencies among its early partners.
The funding goes toward expanding the ground network, scaling retroreflector production and developing the data platform, with the longer-term aim of a global positioning service for operators, insurers and governments.
