TAMPA, Fla. — Simera Sense, a Belgian camera manufacturer, has raised nearly $15 million to move its assembly facilities from South Africa to Europe in order to be closer to its component suppliers and enhance the development of higher-resolution cubesat products.
Johann du Toit, CEO and cofounder of Simera Sense, mentioned that the company is planning to establish a new facility, probably in Europe, this year to increase production capacity by at least five times to meet the growing demand from Earth observation satellite manufacturers.
Du Toit told that their current production capacity is approximately 25 payloads, in addition to 30-40 engineering and test models per year. SpaceNews via email.
He expressed the desire to increase production to 150 to 200 payloads per year, comprising multiple configurations.
Established in 2018, Simera Sense is a specialized unit within Simera Group, a 14-year-old multi-disciplinary engineering company based in South Africa.
Despite its main production facility being in Somerset West, South Africa, du Toit highlighted that many essential optical components are currently being manufactured in Europe.
He added that doubling the size of the development team, which currently consists of about 34 people, over the next two years would facilitate closer and more effective integration with key material and component suppliers in Europe, as well as better collaboration with partners involved in product development.
Nonetheless, du Toit stated that the main production facilities of Simera Sense will continue to be in South Africa in the near future.
Simera Sense’s clients in Europe include AAC Clyde Space, Open Cosmos, and OHB Systems.
The company also collaborates with institutions and is supporting the European Space Agency’s Phi-Sat-2 mission for testing artificial intelligence capabilities on an Earth observation cubesat.
Its primary product range, xScape100, offers monochromatic to hyperspectral imagery with a 4.75 meter ground sampling distance, and du Toit mentioned that more than 10 of these imagers have been launched so far.
He also mentioned that the additional funding will enable the company to expedite the development of higher resolution and more advanced short-wave infrared camera products.
In addition, Simera Sense is working on technology that can be integrated into camera control electronics to process imagery data from space.
Du Toit explained that a regular satellite camera might capture hundreds of pictures and transmit all that data to Earth for processing, even when only a small portion of that data is usable.
Cameras capable of processing raw data and transmitting only the useful information could send data faster and consume less bandwidth, according to du Toit.
The investment marks Simera Sense’s first major fundraising effort following its initial setup with about 1.2 million euros ($1.3 million) in seed capital.
NewSpace Capital, a growth capital investor, led the funding round, which was also supported by Knife Capital.
Bogdan Gogulan, managing partner at NewSpace Capital, stated that he sees numerous synergies between Simera Sense and its other investments, including synthetic aperture radar operator Iceye, geoanalytics provider Kayrros, and ground-to-space laser communications specialist Cailabs.
Belgian camera manufacturer Simera Sense has secured almost $15 million to grow its system assembly facilities outside of South Africa and nearer to its component suppliers in Europe in order to create cubesat products with higher resolutions.
