K2 Space
Imagine if large spacecraft made previously impossible missions possible.
K2 Space is upending satellite technology by challenging a long-held industry assumption: that to make spacecraft cheaper, you need to make them smaller. Instead, they're building massive, high-powered satellites, creating a platform that's transforming how we approach national security, commercial, and scientific missions in space.
We invested in their 2022 pre-seed round and they’ve continued to impress ever since, from significant technical progress and a successful demo mission, to strong customer pull and a string of contracts. Here's what early-stage founders can learn from their story:
- Founders
- Karan Kunjur, Neel Kunjur
- Initial Partnership
- Pre-Seed
- Categories
- Enterprise / Hardware
- Partner
- Meka Asonye
- Location
- Los Angeles
K2 Space
- Founders
- Karan Kunjur, Neel Kunjur
- Initial Partnership
- Pre-Seed
- Categories
- Enterprise / Hardware
- Partner
- Meka Asonye
- Location
- Los Angeles
Founder highlight
Why founders (and brothers) Karan and Neel Kunjur fit the market like a flight suit
The Kunjur brothers bring complementary strengths: Neel's technical expertise from SpaceX and Kitty Hawk, and Karan's commercial chops from BCG and Text IQ. As strong storytellers and communicators — critical in such a capital-intensive industry — they've been able to translate literal rocket science into a compelling mission for candidates and investors to get behind.
Validate without the typical MVP
Even with a contrarian insight and a strong team, the K2 team couldn't skip over the work of understanding their customer and validating market pull. But they couldn't build a traditional MVP— satellites don't exactly lend themselves to quick prototyping. Instead, pre-seed K2 had conversations with 15+ potential customers across new space companies, defense contractors, and NASA, validating real customer need. They also built detailed models of design and costs that impressed us with their thoroughness.
Move at startup speed, even with orbital hardware
In an industry where timelines typically stretch into decades rather than years, K2 Space has compressed this dramatically. From raising their first round to watching their first hardware launch in less than 3 years, the team has executed at a record pace. In 2024, they scaled from 25 to nearly 90 employees, expanded from a 15,000 sq ft factory to a 180,000 sq ft production facility, and secured more than $50 million in customer contracts.
Communicate contrarian insights crisply
The company started on a contrarian bet, swimming against the tide of a market that was going smaller and lower-power with satellites with the insight that we’d be moving from an era of “launch constraint” to “launch abundance.” As strong storytellers and communicators — critical in such a capital-intensive industry — Karan and Neel have been able to translate literal rocket science into a compelling mission for candidates and investors to get behind.
