For decades, satellite positioning has been a public utility: free at the point of use, financed by governments and built to a specification set in the 1970s. Xona Space Systems thinks a private network can do the job better, and investors have now handed it $250M to prove it.
The Long Beach company closed a Series D led by Future Ventures cofounder Steve Jurvetson, with unnamed new and returning backers joining. The round puts Xona at a $2.45B valuation and lifts lifetime fundraising past $570M since it was founded in 2019.
What Pulsar is meant to fix
Government constellations are expensive to run, slow to modernise and vulnerable to spoofed or jammed signals. Xona’s answer is Pulsar, a proposed fleet of roughly 258 satellites promising centimeter-level accuracy, indoor reach and signals far stronger than today’s GPS.
The company cleared a regulatory milestone in August, when it became the first commercial positioning network to win FCC clearance to broadcast in L-band. Military trials with Army, Navy and Air Force equipment are slated for next year.
A jamming problem that is no longer theoretical
Chief executive Brian Manning points to interference around the Strait of Hormuz, where navigation disruptions have affected more than 2,000 ships, as the clearest argument for a hardened alternative. Commercial interest, he says, is coming from robotics, aviation, autonomous vehicles and infrastructure operators.
Xona launched six Pulsar satellites on a SpaceX rideshare flight, four of them built with Aerospacelab, and expects to start selling an early timing service next year. A new factory in Burlingame, California, plus a production target of 50 satellites a year by the end of 2027, is the plan to get from demonstration to density.
The company also holds a defence agreement worth up to $35M to fly Astraeus, a cryogenic-manoeuvring vehicle.
