ICEYE secures first investment from EU's Scaleup Europe Fund in €1bn round
The Finnish satellite company, valued at more than €10bn, becomes the first backing for a European Commission-backed fund set up to keep promising tech firms from being bought out or relocated abroad.
Text by Martti Asikainen, 6.8.2026 | Photo by ICEYE
ICEYE, the Finnish satellite imaging company, has secured the first investment made by the Scaleup Europe Fund, a vehicle established by the European Commission and a group of European investors and managed by the private equity firm EQT.
The fund co-led ICEYE’s recently announced €1 billion Series F funding round, which included €450 million of primary investment and valued the company at more than €10 billion. The transaction is still subject to regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions.
Founders' European roots
Rafał Modrzewski, ICEYE’s co-founder and chief executive, said the deal reflected the company’s own origins in European programmes. He and co-founder Pekka Laurila met as students on an Erasmus exchange and received their first funding through Horizon 2020, the EU’s research and innovation programme.
“We are grateful for the European Commission’s role in initiating the Scaleup Europe Fund,” he said, adding that ICEYE was pleased to welcome EQT as a long-term partner “as we continue to expand our sovereign intelligence capabilities from Europe for customers across Europe and globally.”
Victor Englesson, a partner at EQT and co-head of the Scaleup Europe Fund, said the investment reflected the fund’s purpose of backing “ambitious European founders building globally competitive companies in strategically important technologies.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the investment illustrated the fund’s aim of keeping growth capital in Europe. “When Europe invests in its innovators, Europe invests in its future,” she said, adding that the goal was to ensure scale-ups “can find what they need right here in Europe to grow into world-leading companies.”
A fund built to close Europe's capital gap
The Scaleup Europe Fund has a target size of €5 billion and was set up to address what EQT describes as Europe’s long-standing growth capital gap — the tendency for promising European technology firms to seek later-stage funding, and sometimes relocate, outside the continent.
Beyond ICEYE, the fund’s strategy spans sectors including artificial intelligence, quantum computing, dual-use technologies, clean energy, space technology, and biotech and medical innovation.
Founded in Finland in 2014, ICEYE owns and operates one of the world’s largest synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite constellations, providing continuous monitoring used in defence and intelligence, environmental monitoring, insurance and emergency management.
The company has significant operations in Finland, Poland, Spain and Greece, and has recently added new entities in Germany and Portugal. It says it currently delivers end-to-end sovereign satellite systems for seven European governments, and recently delivered a fully operational sovereign satellite capability to Poland in under twelve months from contract signing. ICEYE now employs more than 1,000 people globally.
