These are not forecasts from optimists. They are the baseline numbers serious capital allocators now use to size the commercial space opportunity. Europe has already placed its bets.

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The Orbital Economy: Europe's $21 Billion Opportunity

European space ventures raised a record EUR 1.5 billion in VC funding in 2024, up 56% over 2023. That momentum continued: global space tech investment reached $12.4 billion in 2025, up 48% year on year. Yet 60% of all global space VC still flows to US companies. That gap is exactly what Europe's new generation of space builders is working to close.

Capital follows sovereign will. Over the next decade, Europe is projected to spend EUR 5 billion transporting its astronauts to orbit. Historically, the vast majority of that money has flowed to US operators. Victor Maier of The Exploration Company put it bluntly from the DTM25 stage: "This is really crazy." The political will to change it is now matched by commercial capability.

Projected at $170 billion by 2040, the lunar economy represents the next frontier for cargo, infrastructure and services beyond low-Earth orbit. For investors, the space market opportunity spans multiple layers: launch services, cargo resupply, in-orbit servicing, satellite networks, and the downstream data economy. Each of those layers is being built, right now, by European companies.

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The Exploration Company: A Flagship for European Commercial Space Companies 2026

The Exploration Company | Oberpfaffenhofen/Munich, Germany

Technology: The Exploration Company builds Nyx, a reusable and in-orbit refillable spacecraft designed to carry cargo to and from space stations in low-Earth orbit. Unlike capsules designed for a single launcher, Nyx can be deployed from any heavy launcher in the world. That structural flexibility gives it a reach that European competitors and customers find uniquely valuable.

Customers: Axiom Space, Starlab, Vast Space, and the European Space Agency. The company is also the first European organisation to have signed a Space Act Agreement with NASA, placing it in the same contractual relationship with the US space agency as SpaceX and Northrop Grumman.

Funding: EUR 196.8 million raised to date, including a EUR 147 million Series B. Investors include Promus Ventures, Partech, EQT Ventures, and Bayern Kapital.

Track record: Two demonstrator capsules have already been built and flown. Mission Bikini, the first demonstrator for ballistic reentry, went from paper sketch to flight-ready in nine months. Mission Possible, a controlled-reentry and cargo recovery vehicle, reached flight-ready status in 24 months. Nyx Earth is the first commercial vehicle, targeting ISS and future space station resupply.

Why it matters: The Exploration Company is Europe's only commercial cargo resupply capability not dependent on US or Russian systems. It represents the kind of sovereign infrastructure that ESA's record EUR 22 billion budget was designed to bring into existence. Named to VivaTech's Top 100 Rising Startups 2026, its trajectory extends well beyond the space sector's usual circles.

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Hélène Huby: From Airbus to Building Europe's Space Future

Hélène Huby co-founded The Exploration Company in Q3-2021, alongside a team of engineers who had worked on the Orion European Service Module, Ariane 6, and the Automated Transfer Vehicle: three of the most complex European space programmes ever executed. She had spent years inside Airbus Space before choosing to build from the outside.

Four to 400 employees in four years. That rate of growth, a hundredfold expansion in a sector famous for long lead times and cautious capital deployment, is what the World Economic Forum cited when listing Huby among its most notable space sector leaders.

Huby will be speaking at Deep Tech Momentum 2026 in Berlin. For investors and founders looking to understand where European cargo transportation infrastructure is heading, this is the conversation to be in the room for.

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Destinus: From Hypersonic Dreams to European Defence Power

Destinus | Zurich/Munich, with operations across Europe

Technology: Destinus launched in 2021 with a striking ambition: a hydrogen-powered hypersonic aircraft capable of Mach 5+ flight, cutting intercontinental routes such as Europe to Australia from 20 hours to four. Early demonstrators, the Jungfrau and Eiger, tested aerodynamics, propulsion and materials for exactly that future. By 2023, the company began a deliberate strategic recalibration. Rather than waiting a decade for the passenger market to mature, Destinus shifted its focus to dual-use autonomous systems with immediate defence applications: the LORD, RUTA and Hornet UAV platforms, built for surveillance, rapid response, and deployment in contested environments.

Acquisition: In 2025, Destinus acquired Swiss AI avionics specialist Daedalean in a deal valued at approximately $220 million. The acquisition signals where the company's competitive edge now sits: not in raw speed, but in AI-driven autonomy and deployable systems that NATO-aligned defence customers can procure on short timelines.

Latest move: In April 2026, Rheinmetall and Destinus announced Rheinmetall Destinus Strike Systems, a joint venture (Rheinmetall 51%, Destinus 49%) to manufacture cruise missiles, loitering munitions and kinetic interceptors at scale across Europe. Formal establishment is expected in the second half of 2026.

Funding: Nearly EUR 400 million raised to date. That total combines more than EUR 200 million in equity, EUR 140 million in convertible instruments and shareholder loans, and a EUR 50 million commercial bank facility from Commerzbank, secured in December 2025.

Why it matters: Destinus illustrates a pattern that the most commercially astute European deep tech builders are following: begin with the boldest possible technical vision, build the core IP and engineering culture around it, then adapt toward the markets where deployment timelines and capital returns are clearest. With 750 engineers across Europe and a Rheinmetall partnership behind it, Destinus is no longer simply a hypersonic startup. Industrial scale is the point now.

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Europe's New Space Landscape: Three More Companies to Watch

No single company wins this race alone. Europe's new space commercial layer is being built across multiple verticals and geographies, with three more companies worth close attention.

Isar Aerospace | Munich, Germany

Technology: The Spectrum rocket, a two-stage orbital launch vehicle optimised for small and medium satellites. Customers and contracts include ESA and commercial satellite operators across Europe. Funding: EUR 600 million+ raised to date, with a EUR 150 million convertible bond closed in July 2025.

Isar achieved unicorn status in 2025 following its first test flight in March 2025. One of five companies selected for ESA's EUR 902.2 million European Launcher Challenge.

Why it matters: Isar is building the orbital economy infrastructure layer that everything else in the European space market depends on.

Rocket Factory Augsburg | Augsburg, Germany

Technology: The RFA ONE orbital rocket, designed for flexible small-satellite launch. Part of the OHB group and selected for the ESA European Launcher Challenge, receiving EUR 190.5 million. Why it matters: RFA brings industrial manufacturing depth and OHB's institutional relationships to the new launch market, a combination few pure-play startups can match.

HyImpulse | Neuenstadt am Kocher, Germany

Technology: Hybrid rocket propulsion using paraffin wax and nitrous oxide, a safer and lower-cost alternative to cryogenic or solid fuels. Developing the SR75 suborbital vehicle and the SL1 orbital launch vehicle. Funding: EUR 18 million Series A.

Why it matters: HyImpulse's propulsion approach has the potential to bring launch cost structures down further than any current European vehicle, which matters enormously when the customer base for small satellite deployment is price-sensitive.

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Europe's Launch Independence: Why Ariane 6 and ESA's Commercial Agenda Matter

The structural shift in European space is not just about startups. Ariane 6's first flight in 2024 restored Europe's autonomous access to orbit after several years of dependence on US launches following the retirement of Ariane 5. Sovereign launch capability is the foundation. Everything else is built on top of it.

ESA's record EUR 22 billion budget, agreed at the Bremen ministerial in December 2025, confirmed that the political commitment runs deep. Twenty-four of 27 contributing nations increased their contributions. Germany pledged over EUR 5 billion, including the first Ministry of Defence contribution. France committed EUR 4.2 billion in additional military space spending for 2026 to 2030.

At EUR 902.2 million across five companies, the European Launcher Challenge is the European equivalent of NASA's 2006 Commercial Orbital Transportation Services programme. That COTS model was the critical institutional foundation for SpaceX. ESA is now building the same conditions for its own generation of launch providers.

IRIS2 adds a further dimension: EUR 10.6 billion total budget, EUR 6.5 billion from public funding, creating a sovereign European broadband and security communications network in low-Earth orbit. Each of these programmes is both a policy instrument and a commercial opportunity.

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Meet the Space Builders at DTM26

Deep Tech Momentum 2026 takes place on 20 and 21 May at Wilhelm Studios in Berlin, bringing together 3,000+ investors, founders and corporate innovation leaders from across Europe and beyond.

Hélène Huby will be among the speakers: a direct opportunity to engage with the person building Europe's sovereign cargo transportation capability at a time when the contracts, the capital and the infrastructure are all converging. Space and deep tech sessions cover the full commercial stack, from launch services and orbital infrastructure to investment theses and ESA's commercialisation roadmap.

If you are allocating capital into European space, building in the sector, or evaluating how space infrastructure intersects with defence, energy or communications: the conversations that matter are happening in Berlin in May. Secure your place at DTM26.