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In the series “Start-up Check!” We regularly examine the business models of start-ups. Today: The Exploration Company (TEC).
Start-ups: That sounds like inventiveness, future technologies, new markets. But in reality, many of the start-ups unfortunately often turn out to be a mixture of an e-commerce idea, haphazard founders and shaky future prospects.
They certainly do exist: the thought leaders who work on the big problems and revolutionize business models. Finding and presenting these is the task of the Start-up Check format. Today: The Exploration Company, a space start-up from Munich.
What is The Exploration Company?
- Founder: Hélène Huby, Artur Koop, Jon Reijneveld
- Founding/locations: Founded in 2021; Headquarters in Munich and Bordeaux
- Industry: Space travel
- Product: Nyx, a modular, reusable space capsule
- Most important financing round: Series B (November 2024) approximately $160 million; According to investor reports, total financing totaled around $230 million
Jeff Bezos and his wife Lauren Sánchez, Elon Musk and Co. have made space travel a mainstream event again: Controversial billionaires, PR stunts and suborbital selfies bring a lot of attention.
Thinking ecologically and in the long term, this hardly addresses the pressing issues of our time. Rocket launches are energy-intensive, materials are complex and many projects pursue short-term growth goals rather than resource efficiency.
That’s exactly why it’s worth taking a closer look at the start-ups in the industry that are seriously working on scalable, reusable and economically viable solutions. The Exploration Company from Planegg near Munich is one such candidate.
TEC was founded in 2021 by Hélène Huby, Artur Koop and Jon Reijneveld; The core team comes from important European space projects (Orion-ESM, Ariane, ATV) and brings with it a lot of system and engine expertise.
The Exploration Company: Recurring logistics contracts instead of one-off hardware sales
The Exploration Company’s core product is Nyx. Behind it is a family of reusable and modular spacecraft for use in low Earth orbit, the moon and beyond.
Nyx relies on a green propulsion system (non-toxic fuels) and will be refuelable in orbit in the medium term to increase sustainability and competitiveness.
Nyx is designed for cargo transport, controlled re-entry and, in the long term, crew or lunar variants. The Goal of the company:
[…] to democratize access to space: We strive to lower the entry threshold for research and business activities in space and thus make it accessible to as many interested parties as possible. We achieve this through open interfaces, sustainable mission design and significantly reduced costs compared to current solutions.
Towards industrial anchoring
It was recently announced that The Exploration Company is taking over the Mönchengladbach company Thrustworks Additive Manufacturing. The company is thus integrating a highly specialized manufacturing unit for engine components including 3D printing skills.
The acquisition creates new production capacities in North Rhine-Westphalia and strengthens TEC’s supply chain for drives. These steps measurably move the start-up from a pure development project towards industrial anchoring: the test data from demonstrators provide technical credibility, and the acquisition of Thrustworks reduces dependency and supply chain risks.
In June 2025, The Exploration Company also completed another demonstrator flight with the “Mission Possible” campaign, which, according to the company, provided essential system data for orbital operations and controlled re-entry. At the same time, TEC is considered the first European company with a Space Act Agreement from NASA – a reference that brings attention and support.
The Series B round in November 2024 raised around $160 million. This brings the cumulative funding close to $230 million. Such capital enables parallel testing and production paths, but also increases the expectation of short-term results.
The Exploration Company: Opportunities and Risks
The opportunities for The Exploration Company are tangible: Europe needs reliable, domestic logistics options for low Earth orbit – not only for economic reasons, but increasingly also for security and sovereignty reasons.
TEC sits exactly at this interface: Series B financing and growing investor support create the financial conditions to ramp up Nyx from prototypes to routine missions. The company also specifically addresses recurring revenue through transport and repatriation services for research and industry.
At the same time, the company itself emphasizes the sustainability component of its development: Nyx is designed to be modular and reusable, and in technical partnerships (such as simulation tools from Ansys) they are explicitly working on more ecologically compatible solutions. An approach that is increasingly seen as a differentiator in the industry.
Financial and time pressure: costs and qualification cycles
However, there are definitely risks involved. Technically, controlled re-entry into the atmosphere is one of the most challenging problems in space travel; Demonstration flights provide valuable data, but they do not replace the long-term reliability required for regular commercial operations.
The financing pressure is also real: follow-up financing, longer qualification cycles or delays in series production drive up costs and increase the pressure of expectations on the part of investors.
Finally, market dynamics remain a challenge: large US players dominate today at the operational level, so TEC has to provide price, frequency and availability arguments in order to survive commercially; The Europe First narrative alone is not enough if the offer is not convincing in terms of cost efficiency and reliability.
Conclusion: European deep tech approach
The Exploration Company, similar to other European deep-tech companies such as Morpheus Space, which advertise energy-efficient propulsion, is positioning itself as a “cleaner” or more sustainable alternative.
They specifically design their technology, reusability and processes so that they are less resource-intensive in the long term than many of the “show space” projects. Whether this will be successful will depend on the question of whether the previous demonstrations become repeatable, cost-efficient missions.
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As a Tech Industry expert, I am excited to see The Exploration Company in Europe making strides towards developing its own space logistics capabilities. This is a significant step for Europe in establishing itself as a key player in the space industry and reducing its dependence on other countries for space transportation and logistics services.
By investing in its own space logistics infrastructure, Europe can not only support its own space missions but also potentially offer services to other countries and organizations. This could open up new opportunities for collaboration and innovation in the space sector.
I believe that The Exploration Company’s efforts to develop its own space logistics capabilities will not only benefit Europe’s space program but also contribute to the overall growth and competitiveness of the global space industry. I look forward to seeing how this initiative progresses and what new advancements and opportunities it may bring to the industry.
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