Cailabs just pulled off a €57 million cash grab dressed up as a strategic scaling operation. The Rennes-based company builds optical ground stations, which in theory will become the backbone of secure, high-speed satellite communications. In practice, they’ve got about ten systems under contract and a promise to crank out fifty a year by 2027, assuming the supply chain, weather, and European bureaucracy don’t eat them alive.
The investors list reads like a who’s who of government wallets disguised as venture capital. The European Investment Bank wrote the biggest check, joined by French defense-backed funds and some usual suspects like Crédit Agricole’s local expansion arm. Sprinkle in NewSpace Capital and the European Innovation Council, and suddenly this is a EU industrial policy disguised as a Series C. Everyone gets to claim they’re funding “deep tech” instead of quietly subsidizing military-grade infrastructure.
