ICEYE secures 40M PLN from Vinci Fund and signs satellite deal with Finnish Defence Forces
The Finnish Defence Forces is developing its intelligence and surveillance capabilities by acquiring SAR radar satellites from ICEYE. The Finnish-Polish leader in microsatellites has also just confirmed funding of 40mln PLN from the Vinci Fund, part of Poland’s state development bank BGK group.
ICEYE, the global leader in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite operations, and the Finnish Defence Forces have officially signed a contract for the procurement of SAR satellites. This procurement decision follows the Letter of Intent signed with the Finnish Ministry of Defence in June and will significantly enhance the Finnish Defence Forces’ intelligence and surveillance capabilities from space.
The contract was signed in Tampere, Finland, by Brigadier General Engineering Juha-Matti Ylitalo, Deputy Director of the Finnish Defence Forces Logistics Command, and Seppo Aaltonen, VP Nordics & NATO at ICEYE.
At the end of August, the company has also announced that The Vinci Fund, owned by the Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego (BGK) group, has become an investor in ICEYE.
- “Our investment in ICEYE means that Poland is entering a completely new segment of the satellite industry at an early stage. High-quality satellite data can be applied both in defense and intelligence operations as well as in preventing and mitigating the effects of natural disasters. The Earth observation market from space is growing by 2 billion dollars annually, driven by orders from governments and the private sector,” says Bartosz Drabikowski, President of Vinci, a BGK Group fund supporting the development of innovative technologies. “We are entering this promising market with great appetite, seeing it as an opportunity for Poland’s growth, but also as a chance to multiply Vinci’s capital. Right after the second space flight in history by a Pole, we are announcing our first investment in space technologies,” he adds.
ICEYE is the owner and operator of the world’s largest SAR satellite constellation, offering global access to radar data with the highest available revisit frequency and 25 cm resolution, enabling precise detection of objects regardless of weather conditions or time of day. Since 2018, ICEYE has placed 54 SAR satellites into orbit for its own constellation and for clients, and starting this year, it plans to launch about 20 new satellites annually. In May 2025, the company signed an agreement with the Ministry of National Defense to deliver three radar satellites to the Polish Armed Forces under the MikroSAR program.
Source: www.iceye.com, www.iceye.com/pl
