A look at the Singapore space startup said to have raised $100m in seed money

Candice Lee contributed to this article.

Qosmosys, a Singapore-based spacetech firm with the ambition of going to the moon, made waves when it announced raising a massive US$100 million seed round in October last year via what it called a “unique and protective funding model.”

It was a sum that TechCrunch called “astonishing,” given that seed rounds for startups typically do not exceed a few million dollars at most.

Since then, details on the terms of the fundraise and the identities of the investors involved remain scant.

Photo credit: Qosmosys

A scan of corporate registry information of Qosmosys and related entities only surfaced paid-up capital not exceeding US$1 million, though investments made via convertible debt typically do not show up in the database.

Tech in Asia has also found that Qosmosys’ LinkedIn page lists only a handful of employees, and none of them appear to be serving an engineering role at the startup, which was established in 2020.

That said, the firm counts Ghislain Le Chatelier, an angel investor and former Google executive, as a prominent shareholder and board member. European aerospace major Airbus is also providing its services to develop Qosmosys’ prototype.

In an interview with Tech in Asia in November 2023, Qosmosys founder and CEO François Dubrulle said that part of the reason why no new shareholders have shown up in the filings was because the fundraise was a “private investment” that included “private wealth” from “very discreet people.”

The capital raised was part equity and part loan, Dubrulle noted without providing a breakdown.

A search of Qosmosys’ shareholder data available on Alternatives.pe uncovered a key entity: an investment firm called Orient G that owned over 95% of the startup. However, Dubrulle tells Tech in Asia in a more recent interaction that Orient G is his personal holding company in Singapore.

To the moon

In the news release announcing the deal, Qosmosys said the funds will go toward “fortifying its position as a premier private player in the burgeoning moon economy.”

Dubrulle told Tech in Asia in November last year that the capital would mostly go to designing and engineering Qosmosys’ concept for its ZeusX flagship project, which includes a space vehicle that can deliver cargo to the moon.

The project aims to help public or private entities develop mining and robotics, science and technology, as well as transportation operations on the moon (and beyond).

Who is Dubrulle?