As part of its mission to develop a new generation of spacecraft aimed at moving satellites rapidly between orbits, Pave Space has announced that it has raised $40m to develop a spacecraft designed to move satellites beyond low Earth orbit (LEO) and cut satellite deployment times from months to hours.
Pave Space was founded in Lausanne, Switzerland in 2024 by CEO Julie Böhning and CTO Jérémy Marciacq. The pair previously co-founded the Gruyère Space Program, which is the first European reusable rocket initiative.
With CHF 250,000 in sponsorship funding, the team designed and built a reusable rocket demonstrator that completed 53 test flights in 2024. That experience is said to have shaped Pave’s engineering philosophy of maintaining full control over the vehicle stack and iterating rapidly through real-world testing.
At present, the company develops propulsion systems, avionics, control algorithms and structural design internally, enabling rapid engineering cycles and tight integration across the platform. The company’s long-term ambition is to become the logistics backbone of the global space economy, enabling spacecraft and industries to operate across Earth orbit, lunar missions and beyond.
The company’s current priority is to build a family of orbital transfer vehicles (OTVs) capable of addressing one of the emerging logistical bottlenecks of the rapidly expanding space economy. In other words, transporting satellites from LEO to higher-energy destinations – such as geostationary orbit (GEO), medium Earth orbit (MEO), or lunar trajectories – in fewer than 24 hours.
Pave Space said that the problem is that most rockets currently deliver satellites only to LEO and spacecraft must rely from there on their own electric propulsion systems to slowly climb to their operational orbit. This process that can take six to 12 months and delay revenue-generating services while tying up capital.
Fundamentally, Pave believes that Europe lacks an independent logistics provider capable of enabling mobility and responsiveness in and between orbits. Pave Space aims to fill that gap.
With more than 12,000 satellites already in orbit and thousands more launched each year, Pave believes that demand for rapid and flexible mobility between orbits is growing quickly and so it is building the infrastructure to enable it.
Its flagship system, a heavy kickstage vehicle, delivers them to higher-energy orbits quickly and reliably. By replacing the traditional electric orbit-raising process, the platform significantly reduces mission timelines while lowering overall mission cost. Pave’s architecture uses storable bipropellants rather than cryogenic fuels, eliminating boil-off constraints inside the fairing, and supporting long-duration missions that cryogenic systems cannot serve.
Alongside the heavy kickstage system, Pave is also developing a smaller mobile platform designed for responsive missions and dual-use applications, enabling satellites and payloads to move rapidly between orbital positions.
For satellite operators, the potential impact is substantial, according to Pave. It stressed that services can be brought online months earlier, avoiding the inefficiencies and opportunity costs associated with slow orbital transfer. The company also sees its development of providing a strategic capability for Europe’s sovereign space ambitions.
“The space economy is entering an industrial phase where logistics will become as critical in orbit as they are on Earth,” said Böhning. “Our ambition is to build the infrastructure that allows industries to move, operate and scale beyond Earth – while ensuring Europe retains sovereign capabilities in this next strategic domain.”
The company said that it has already secured eight reservation agreements with satellite operators and manufacturers, and it is engaged in discussions with several major industry players. It plans its first in-space demonstration mission later in 2026.
Pave believes that the new funding will allow it to accelerate development of its heavy kickstage logistics platform and execute its first in-orbit technical demonstration mission as well as expand its engineering and operations team.
Pave said that its new investors see it as a key infrastructure player emerging at the intersection of several powerful trends: sovereign European space access, accelerating defence investment and the rise of a global space logistics economy. It believes that its new investment ranks among the largest seed financing in the global space sector in recent years.
The funding round was led by Visionaries Club and Creandum, with participation from Lombard Odier Investment Managers, Atlantic Labs, Sistafund, b2venture, ACE Investment Partners, Ilavaska Vuillermoz Capital, Pareto & Motier Ventures.
“Getting to space has become routine, but moving once you’re there has not,” said Marton Sarkadi Nagy, partner at Visionaries Club. “Pave is building the logistics platform that will enable the next generation of commercial and industrial missions in space.”
