London’s Foundational exits stealth with €9.6 million to track satellites and debris with “millimetre-level” precision

Foundational, a London-based SpaceTech startup developing infrastructure for a more precise understanding of Earth and orbit, has emerged from stealth with €9.6 million (£8.2 million) in pre-Seed funding.

Participants in the round include early-stage VC Inflection, London-based early-stage VC BACKED, Nordic VC firm Final Frontier, New York-based early-stage venture firm Adjacent, and California-based Type One Ventures.

Alexander Lange, Founding Partner, Inflection, said, “Almost everything in orbit, and a surprising amount on the ground, depends on knowing exactly where things are. Existing measurement technology isn’t suitable for the next space era or the rise of physical AI and its navigation challenges. Foundational is rebuilding it as a commercial network with flying hardware and paying customers, rooted in decades of scientific research the team has been contributing to.”

Founded in 2025 by Hira Virdee and Dave Gooding, Foundational claims to be delivering a new way to collect, process, and deliver highly precise positioning data for satellite applications, including spanning navigation and positioning, Earth observation and surveying, and maritime and aviation. 

The company builds on laser-ranging technology originally developed at Lumi Space, which Virdee founded in 2018 with support from the European Space Agency and UK Space Agency. The UK startup was established to take the technology from research and development into commercial deployment.

Foundational states that it is automating and scaling Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR), a highly accurate method of determining the position of satellites and other objects in orbit. “To put that precision in everyday terms, it is comparable to detecting, from London, that a car in Edinburgh has rolled forward by just the width of a pencil,” the startup mentioned in the press release. 

It combines satellite-mounted retroreflectors, automated ground-based laser stations, and a software platform that processes and delivers the resulting data, turning SLR into a scalable commercial service. 

According to the company, the growing number of satellites and debris in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is increasing the risk of collision and disruption to satellite-based services. It argues that preventing this requires operators to know, with increasing precision, where objects are and how their trajectories are changing.

It explains that SLR works by firing laser pulses from a ground station towards a retroreflector on a satellite and measuring the time it takes for the light to return, providing millimetre-level ranging precision. 

The resulting data can support space traffic control, resilient navigation and Earth observation, as well as critical infrastructure across telecommunications, energy, finance, logistics and transport, says Foundational. 

The company notes that it is modernising the system around three core components: the retroreflectors placed on satellites, the ground stations that track them, and the software platform that processes and delivers the resulting data. It brings them together into a single, vertically integrated system. 

Foundational highlighted that it unites them into a single, vertically integrated system and claims the resulting product is fully automated, up to 30 times less expensive than legacy stations, weatherproof, and designed to scale as part of a network rather than as one-off standalone sites.

Virdee, CEO and co-founder of Foundational, said “Every time you tap your card, check your map or make a phone call, you’re relying on satellite infrastructure – but the technology we use to track exactly where satellites are hasn’t kept up with the explosion of the space economy. Satellite Laser Ranging is the gold standard, and is one of the most precise measurement tools humanity has built, capable of pinpointing a satellite to within millimetres, but until now it’s been too costly and too complex to use at scale. 

“Foundational is changing that. By bringing the hardware, ground network and data platform together under one roof, we’re rebuilding a critical layer of space infrastructure for the commercial era. This investment lets us expand our global network, putting precision positioning data in the hands of satellite operators and governments worldwide, and laying the groundwork for new data products that will benefit life here on Earth.”

It plans to use this capital to expand its ground-station network, vertically integrate its manufacturing of space-based hardware, scale up production of retroflector products and further develop its data platform.

Foundational’s customers and partners include the European Space Agency (ESA), multiple UK government departments and agencies, established aerospace manufacturers, research institutes around the world, and NewSpace companies developing commercial space technologies.

It aims to establish a resilient global network capable of providing satellite operators, insurers and governments with continuously available positioning data, supporting applications spanning space traffic control, resilient navigation and Earth observation.

The post London’s Foundational exits stealth with €9.6 million to track satellites and debris with “millimetre-level” precision appeared first on EU-Startups.