Eutelsat Communications SA, the European competitor to Elon Musk’s Starlink, said that the UK government will invest €163.3 million, joining a France-led round into the company last month.
The additional funds bring the amount the low-Earth-orbit satellite company has raised to €1.5 billion, the company said in a statement on Thursday. The French government, Bharti Space, CMA CGM and Fonds Stratégique de Participations announced they would invest €1.35 billion last month in a deal to help the company build out its fleet of satellites.
Eutelsat is considered strategically important to European sovereignty as the bloc seeks to bolster its military defenses. In February, when a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy devolved into an acrimonious exchange, concerns about European reliance on the US-based Starlink’s service sent Eutelsat’s shares soaring.
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The British government is an existing investor and had previously bailed out the satellite constellation, known as OneWeb, in 2020 before it was acquired by Eutelsat. The new investment maintains the UK’s 10.9% stake in Eutelsat, the third largest investor after the French government and Bharti respectively.
“As our adversaries increasingly use space technologies to harm us, resilient satellite connectivity has become essential to our continent’s national security,” UK Technology Minister Peter Kyle said in a statement.
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The satellite provider offers communications for governments and businesses, but has struggled as its technology and financing was outpaced by Starlink. While the additional funding will help cover Eutelsat’s immediate needs, the company will ultimately have to find €4 billion by 2032 to update OneWeb’s satellites and participate in a project to build a European Union service called Iris2.
Eutelsat shares rose 8% to €3.80 at 3:38 p.m. in Paris. The stock has gained 66% this year.
