Exploration Laboratories develops space-resources technologies, primarily the ACQR autonomous capture and acquisition robot and the SERV spacecraft designed to host up to 30 metric tons of payload in its fully stacked configuration. The company aims to combine ACQR and SERV to capture and control large objects in space, supporting asteroid retrieval and in‑situ resource utilization in cis-lunar space while providing payload hosting, transportation, delivery, and large-scale power utility functions. ExLabs plans a civil mission to rendezvous with asteroid Apophis in 2028 to deposit three cubesats and validate systems and software for future asteroid capture campaigns. Financially, ExLabs has secured government-backed R&D funding—a $1.7M SpaceWERX SBIR contract in 2023—and recently received a $1.9M Tactical Funding Increase (TACFI) from SpaceWERX split between government and private investors to advance prototype development. The new funding is intended to transition the ACQR platform to prototype development and testing and to pave the way for an orbital test flight. Founded in 2023 and based in Southern California, the team includes CEO and co-founder Matthew Schmidgall, co-founder Miguel Pascual, and several senior space systems veterans with mission experience.

Total raised

$2M

Funding rounds

1

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Jun 2024