Satellite Company Astranis Raising Above $2 Billion in Defense Tech Frenzy

An increasingly technical space race with China has made satellites a hot investment category

The Andreessen Horowitz-backed satellite company Astranis is raising a new funding round that values the company above $2 billion, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

Snowpoint, the Palantir mafia-started VC fund, is set to lead the round, the people said.

Astranis builds geostationary satellites that orbit around 35,000 km above Earth to provide communications coverage for internet, phone, and satellite‑to‑satellite relay. Its founders, CEO John Gedmark and CTO Ryan McLinko, are both space industry operators: Gedmark ran the Commercial Spaceflight Federation for 5 years before launching the startup, while McLinko was an engineering lead at satellite maker Planet Labs.

The company is riding the defense tech wave and in particular the increasing interest in low cost communication satellites.