Fortastra Raises $30M Series A Round for Space Defense

Fortastra, a Torrance startup that is developing maneuverable, resilient spacecraft for on-orbit security and national defense, closed a $30 million Series A round led by First In with participation from Upfront Ventures, Space Capital, Rsquared, Side Door Ventures and ATX Ventures, amongst others as well as existing investors. The round will be used to accelerate development and commissioning of its on-orbit security platforms, expand engineering and operations teams, and continue to develop its core autonomy and manufacturing capabilities.

“We will build more operational prototypes in Series A. We’re very defense-forward. Space defense is a government problem today, but a big part of the thesis is when this becomes a commercial problem with trends like compute in space,” said Mike Smayda, founder and chief executive. “You wouldn’t build a data center on the ground with a security option. This will be like any other domain.”

Fortastra’s maneuverable spacecraft are designed to hold position near critical assets, evaluate surrounding activity and respond to potential threats in real time. The company aims to establish persistent, multi-orbit security coverage through mass deployment and high-rate manufacturing in close partnership with commercial and defense leaders.

In less than a year, it achieved its seed milestones and secured initial government contracts. It successfully launched two prototype satellites last month. The next phase involves scaling its engineering team, focusing on flight software and expanding its manufacturing infrastructure to build a modular spacecraft bus optimized for high-rate production. The goal is to launch two more prototypes in early 2028 to geostationary orbit, a higher level above the planet that is harder to access but is an important layer to the defense and commercial sectors as the orbital economy grows.

“Never before have public and private U.S. space assets been more critical to the functioning of everyday life but also more vulnerable to disruption by a variety of adversaries,” said Arthur Karell, general partner at First In, in a statement. “The Fortastra team is rapidly solving that gap by producing high-performance, low-cost space defenses.”

The round follows a run of recent milestones, including the launch of Watchdog V0, a memorandum of understanding with manufacturer Hadrian to apply precision machining and additive manufacturing to national security spacecraft programs, along with the appointment of Scott Klempner, former deputy program executive officer for space combat power at Space Systems Command, as director of product, national security.

Information for this story was provided by Fortastra.