The Exploration Company with SpaceX ambitions aiming for a $2bn valuation

The Financial Times reports that European space start-up The Exploration Company (TEC) is in talks to raise at least $300 million in new funding, potentially lifting its valuation above $2 billion. The deal could include backing from the EU-supported Scaleup Europe Fund, managed by EQT. TEC, founded in 2021, is developing reusable space capsules under its Nyx family and a rocket engine called Storm, aiming to become Europe’s first commercially credible reusable capsule provider and eventually compete with SpaceX. The article signals growing investor appetite for European deep-tech and space infrastructure, with implications for competition in the low-Earth-orbit market and for funding conditions across the sector.