UK and US-based SpaceTech startup The Compression Company is asserting a €2.8 million ($3.4 million) pre-Seed spherical to deal with restricted satellite tv for pc bandwidth with AI-driven compression that runs immediately onboard satellites, reportedly decreasing file sizes by over 95% and enabling every one to transmit way more information to Earth throughout every brief ground-station cross.
The spherical was led by Lengthy Journey (early backers of SpaceX, Uber and Anduril). The brand new funding will likely be used to develop the engineering workforce and assist additional business rollouts with satellite tv for pc operators.
“There’s been large investments in capturing extra information from area, however far much less consideration paid to how that information really will get again to Earth,” says Michael Stanway, co-founder and CEO of The Compression Firm. “Till now, the reply has been to launch extra satellites. We’re taking a unique strategy – utilizing software program to compress information in orbit, so operators can deliver down extra helpful data from present satellites and unlock extra worth from the information they’re already capturing.”
Latest EU-Startups protection reveals sustained SpaceTech funding throughout 2025–2026, spanning infrastructure, Earth remark and onboard compute.
In November 2025, France’s Infinite Orbits secured €40 million to scale satellite tv for pc servicing capabilities, whereas Reflex Aerospace raised €50 million to strengthen satellite tv for pc manufacturing and infrastructure. France-based U-House raised €24 million to advance high-cadence satellite tv for pc launches and constellation deployment. In Spain, Kreios Space secured €8 million to develop very low Earth orbit satellite tv for pc expertise, whereas UK-based Spaceflux raised €6.1 million to develop its satellite-tracking community.
On the Earth remark facet, Germany’s Marble Imaging raised €5.3 million to scale its very-high-resolution EO constellation. Belgium’s EDGX secured €2.3 million to spice up onboard AI compute for satellites, Italy’s Astradyne raised €2 million for ultralight photo voltaic panels, and Finland’s Vexlum secured €10 million to scale semiconductor laser manufacturing for quantum and area functions.
Collectively, these rounds quantity to roughly €148 million in disclosed funding throughout the sector. Inside this context, The Compression Firm’s €2.8 million pre-Seed spherical represents a relatively smaller however strategically aligned increase targeted on software-layer optimisation.
Whereas a lot of the latest capital has flowed into satellite tv for pc manufacturing, launch functionality, servicing and onboard {hardware}, the corporate’s AI-driven compression platform addresses the downstream constraint of information transmission.
“AI compression unlocks an enormous alternative with Earth Remark information. Operators have all the time needed to make trade-offs about what will get despatched,” provides Joe Griffith, CTO of The Compression Firm. “When extra of the information you accumulate can really make it to the bottom, these trade-offs change and you’ll be way more selective about what you throw away, and way more bold in regards to the providers you construct on prime.”
Based in 2025, The Compression Firm is an information compression platform designed to optimise the storage and transmission of earth remark and geospatial information. Its expertise makes use of AI-driven compression to cut back the dimensions of information immediately on satellites and on the bottom, enabling operators to ship considerably extra data again to Earth by restricted bandwidth.
By prioritising essentially the most priceless elements of every picture, The Compression Firm helps satellite tv for pc operators decrease prices, scale back delays, and ship usable information sooner with out altering present workflows.
The corporate was based by Michael Stanway (CEO) and Joe Griffith (CTO), who met whereas finding out neurotechnology at Imperial School London. Stanway’s analysis targeted on conserving mind tissue alive outdoors the physique – work that required dealing with huge imaging datasets. Griffith studied how the mind itself compresses data, growing neural community approaches to information compression. Griffith left his PhD to co-found the corporate after the pair recognised that the identical strategies might clear up bottlenecks far past neuroscience, and recognized area because the clearest alternative.
The Compression Firm emerged from Entrepreneurs First, a world expertise investor, with robust early traction and has shipped its first orbital deployment, scheduled to go stay in Q1 2026.
“House has turn into an information trade, however the potential to maneuver and work with that information has lagged badly behind its era,” says Lee Jacobs, Managing Companion and Founder, Lengthy Journey. “The Compression Firm is tackling one of the crucial basic constraints within the ecosystem with a software-first strategy that’s each technically bold and instantly helpful to operators. Michael and Joe pair deep, authentic pondering with actual builder instincts, and we’re excited to again them as they create a brand new layer of infrastructure for the area information stack.”
Based on the corporate, the quantity of information generated in area is staggering and quickly rising. The EU’s Copernicus Sentinels alone produce 20 terabytes daily, and main business constellations generate several times that. Over the following decade, greater than 5,400 additional EO satellites are anticipated to launch – almost triple the earlier ten years.
Each new satellite tv for pc provides to the quantity of images and sensor information captured in regards to the Earth – information that may inform the whole lot from local weather monitoring and catastrophe responses to defence, agriculture, and international logistics.
Satellite tv for pc operators can seize extraordinary ranges of element, however getting that information again to Earth stays a basic problem.
Satellites function with restricted bandwidth and usually have only some minutes per cross to transmit information once they come inside vary of a floor station – an antenna on Earth that receives satellite tv for pc information. Consequently, solely 2% of the data recorded by every satellite tv for pc makes it again to Earth, whereas the remainder is delayed, degraded, or discarded, regardless of its potential worth and the excessive value of accumulating it.
The Compression Firm reduces the dimensions of the information immediately on the satellite tv for pc, reportedly shrinking the dimensions of information with out compromising accuracy or usability. Somewhat than utilizing blanket compression, the platform applies completely different ranges of compression inside every picture. Cloud cowl, which accounts for almost 60% of satellite imagery, is compressed way more closely, because it returns little worth for customers.
In maritime surveillance, detected ships are preserved at full constancy whereas the encompassing ocean is compressed extra aggressively. The precept is similar: save bandwidth for high-value information.
This permits operators to obtain way more information throughout every transmission window, scale back storage and transmission prices, and ship usable data sooner and extra steadily.
As satellites are more and more launched with extra onboard compute, together with graphics processing models (GPUs), the corporate is ready to ship this functionality as a software-only answer, deploying superior compression immediately in orbit with out requiring new {hardware}.
“We’re at an inflection level,” provides Michael. “As soon as information transmission is not the bottleneck, the tempo of innovation throughout Earth remark and its functions can improve dramatically. Our purpose is to make that doable.”
Because the area economic system continues to develop, the corporate believes clever compression will turn into a foundational functionality, supporting operators to seize extra, ship insights sooner, and supply new merchandise with out launching new {hardware}.
