Tumbleweed, a Vienna start-up that flies research experiments in orbit, has raised a €6.9m (about $7.7m) seed round led by PactVC. The company announced the round on 3 November 2026.
Vanagon Ventures, Prototype Capital, an earlier backer, and EWOR also invested. Payload reported that angel investors including SES co-founder Candace Johnson took part. The valuation was not disclosed.
The round is the largest seed round for a space-tech company in Austria, according to Tech.eu and the Austrian government's Austria in Space portal. The portal also reported that more than a third of the company's staff invested their own money.
“Every single customer is a first-time space user.”Julian Rothenbuchner, CEO, Tumbleweed (to Trending Topics)
What Tumbleweed does
Tumbleweed sells space in small pods that carry experiments into microgravity. Tech.eu reported that a pod package costs €15,000 and covers development, launch and operations, and that about 40% of prospective customers go on to buy. The company claims its service is ten times cheaper and five times faster than flying experiments on the International Space Station.
In July 2026 it launched Oasis Alpha, which it describes as Austria's first commercial satellite, on SpaceX's Transporter-17 mission with four customer payloads. The satellite was built in nine months, and Trending Topics reported that it cost less than €500,000. Austria in Space named Mass Balance, ESRIC and TU Delft as customers on the mission.
Chief executive Julian Rothenbuchner told Trending Topics that every single customer was a first-time space user.
Rothenbuchner told Tech.eu that he did not think researchers needed to be convinced that microgravity has interesting uses. EWOR chief executive Daniel Dippold said the service meant every lab and manufacturer could use space without first becoming a space company.
From student project to company
The company grew out of Team Tumbleweed, a student project started in 2016, and was set up as a company in November 2024. It is led by Rothenbuchner, chief operating officer Leonhard Goliasch and chief technology officer Guillaume Brault, and has an office in Delft in the Netherlands as well as Vienna.
Reports of its size differ: its press kit lists 21 employees, while Tech.eu and Austria in Space put the team at 25. Rothenbuchner told Tech.eu that traditional funding routes had been too slow for the pace at which he wanted to build.
What the money is for
Tumbleweed plans three missions in 2027 for more than ten customers in medical research, biotechnology and agricultural technology. It is also building Oasis Beta, a platform that can return experiments to Earth, which it plans to fly in 2028. Payload reported that it intends to build its own reentry vehicle.
Austria in Space reported that the Vienna team is expected to grow by about 70% by the end of 2026. Trending Topics listed Varda, Space Forge, The Exploration Company and ATMOS among companies working on orbital manufacturing and return.
Andreas Klinger, founder of Prototype Capital, told Tech.eu that it was hard to overestimate how important the company could become.
Company website: tumbleweed.com