Cosmoserve Space has raised $6 Mn in a seed funding round led by Japan-based Rebright Partners. While Aranya Holdings and Naandi Ventures also participated in the round, existing investors AUM Ventures and Shakti VC doubled down on their erstwhile bet. 

The startup shared plans to utilise the fresh capital to support tech demonstrations, fuel two upcoming missions, as well enhance the operations of its recently unveiled Hyderabad facility. 

Cosmoserve has now raised over $9 Mn since inception last year. The startup has doubled its valuation since it raised pre-seed funding in September, founder Chiranjeevi Phanindra told Inc42. The exact valuation is yet to be discerned. 

For context, the startup is building tech to remove defunct satellites and orbital debris from space and reduce the collision risks for operational spacecraft in a cost effective manner. 

It plans on optimising costs by setting up features within its craft that will allow it to refuel in-orbit and remove multiple pieces of debris in a single mission. 

The startup made its first tech demonstration, Mission Embrace-1, aboard Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-1 rocket. The mission was designed to test the startup’s soft robotic capture system that removes space debris, but the system’s robotic petals failed to deploy as intended. 

Cosmoserve claims to have now identified and addressed potential issues with the thermal mechanism used to release the petals and the impact of low temperatures on the system, according to Phanindra. 

The startup is now gearing up for Embrace-2, an upgraded version of the mission to validate its upgraded robotic capture mechanism, which is expected to launch in the coming months.

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