Space start-up soars higher with significant new investment

A $35 million investment is helping Fleet Space Technologies continue to grow, with new job opportunities across the board.

Six years ago, Fleet Space Technologies was founded in South Australia with just three employees on board. Three years later, the company made history when it launched Australia’s first four commercial nanosatellites into low Earth orbit: Proxima I and II, and Centauri I and II.

Today, Fleet Space employs 52 members of staff and has six nanosatellites in orbit. And, thanks to a recent injection of more than $35 million into the business from local and overseas investors, there’s more to come.

“We are expanding in the US, we are launching more satellites to connect more countries worldwide, we are adding to the team 70 new positions and we are going to build an incredible manufacturing factory in Adelaide, so it is a big step,” says Flavia Tata Nardini, co-founder and CEO.

As a company which manages a constellation of satellites in the sky while providing services on the ground, this expansion will create job opportunities across a range of roles. “It’s important to understand it’s not just rocket scientists working at Fleet,” Nardini says. “We are hiring a lot of engineers – in aerospace, software, electronics and manufacturing – but the beauty is that, whether you like marketing, social media, finance, law, sales or HR, everything you like can bring you to work in a space company.

“It’s funny – sometimes I look at the list of vacancies and I see geologists and people who know energy. It is really varied.”

Flavia Tata Nardini, CEO and co-founder at Fleet Space Technologies. Picture: Matt Turner

Having been part of South Australia’s space sector from its early beginnings, Nardini has witnessed its phenomenal growth. When Fleet was launched, it was one of only two space start-ups in the country: today, South Australia is already home to more than 90 space-related organisations.

“It is an amazing boom that the first start-ups are thriving because it elevates the ecosystem,” she says. “This is just the beginning. SpaceX was a start-up of one person and has grown to employ thousands of employees in 20 years. Fleet is just in the first five years of this big growth so imagine what can happen. It is really good for the new generation.

“And Adelaide is home to the Australian Space Agency – it’s building momentum as the centre of knowledge, like the Houston of the southern hemisphere.”

For Nardini, the pride comes not just from running a successful start-up but from the confidence of doing it right. “When you launch things into space and they work exactly as you envisioned them, it is epic,” she says. “We look out on a starry night and know our satellites are there, working, navigating and sending data – it’s priceless.

“Starting from a garage, from an idea from two young visionaries, we have given ourselves the right to be space heroes. It makes you very proud because a high percentage of people don’t manage to put things into space that work. It’s a niche of really ambitious people, and that makes it very special.”