Spain’s Kreios Space has raised €8 million led by the NATO Innovation Fund—its first deal in Spain—to commercialise an “air-breathing” electric thruster that could keep satellites flying just a few hundred kilometres above Earth for years. That altitude—Very-Low Earth Orbit—changes the economics of imaging and direct-to-device links, and it plays directly into Europe’s industrial-policy ambitions.
A quiet but strategic move
On 17–18 September, the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF) led an €8 million seed round in Kreios Space, a Vigo-based start-up developing air-breathing electric propulsion (ABEP). Berlin’s JOIN Capital co-led; Grow Venture Partners, XesGalicia (the Xunta de Galicia’s investment arm),
