Xona has raised a $250 million Series D at a $2.45 billion valuation to build out Pulsar, its commercial satellite-navigation network. Future Ventures led the financing, announced Thursday, just seven months after the California company’s $170 million Series C.
Pulsar is designed to run alongside the government-operated GPS network rather than replace it outright. Xona says its low-Earth-orbit signals can be up to 100 times stronger than GPS, reach receivers indoors and deliver centimeter-level positioning while resisting jamming. The service is meant to feed more dependable location and timing data to existing commercial receivers.
That pitch matters because weak satellite-navigation signals can be jammed or spoofed, while government systems are slow and expensive to upgrade. Xona says existing commercial receivers can pick up Pulsar without hardware changes, potentially lowering the cost of adoption. The company plans to sell access as a paid commercial service.
The network is moving from validation into deployment. Xona launched six Pulsar satellites this month, its largest mission so far; four are intended to support beta service in several countries beginning in early 2027. The other two were designed and built entirely in-house and will test the production design for the broader constellation.
Xona says its earlier Pulsar-0 test satellite has completed more than 500 transmissions and demonstrated positioning accuracy better than two centimeters. The Federal Communications Commission authorized the constellation in August, according to TNW. The new capital arrives as Xona tries to turn those tests, regulatory clearance and an early orbital fleet into a commercial navigation service.