The European Investment Bank has signed a €30 million venture debt loan with PLD Space to support the final development stage of MIURA 5, the Spanish company's two-stage rocket designed to deploy small satellites into low Earth orbit.
The operation, signed on 7 April in Elche, Spain, and guaranteed by InvestEU, marks the EIB's first direct investment in a small satellite launcher.
It takes PLD Space's total fundraising in 2026 to €210 million, following the company's €180 million Series C closed on 4 March and led by Mitsubishi Electric Corporation.
MIURA 5 is a two-stage rocket in the small lift segment, designed to carry payloads of up to around 1,040 kilograms to low Earth orbit.
Its positioning is deliberate: rather than sharing manifests on medium- or heavy-lift vehicles, MIURA 5 is built for dedicated small satellite launches, reducing the scheduling complexity and mission risk that constellation operators face when their payloads are secondary cargo.
The first stage is designed for reusability, recovering in the ocean after separation. PLD Space says the rocket is on track for its inaugural test flight in 2026 from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana, and targets a commercial launch cadence of more than 30 missions per year by 2030, operating from multiple spaceports.
The EIB financing will support both the completion of MIURA 5's final development programme and the scaling of PLD Space's industrial and launch infrastructure as it transitions toward commercial operations.
EIB Vice President Robert de Groot said the bank was backing PLD Space to reach globally competitive price levels in a segment where European autonomous access to space is increasingly seen as a strategic priority.
EU Commissioner for Defence and Space Andrius Kubilius described independent launch capability as “essential to our security, our economy, and our future” and framed the investment as part of a broader EU commitment to building a competitive European launch industry.
PLD Space was founded in Elche in 2011 by Raúl Torres and Raúl Verdú, making it the first private Spanish rocket company. It launched the MIURA 1 suborbital technology demonstrator successfully on 7 October 2023, and has since scaled substantially.
The company now employs more than 450 people and operates across more than 188,000 square metres of facilities in Elche, Teruel, Kourou in French Guiana, and Duqm in Oman.
With the EIB deal, PLD Space has raised more than €380 million to date, a figure that does not include the €169 million in launch service contracts committed by the Spanish government through ESA's European Launcher Challenge, for which PLD Space was selected in 2025.
The March Series C was led by Mitsubishi Electric, which contributed €50 million and simultaneously became a strategic launch customer, contracting PLD Space to provide small satellite launch services for Japan and the broader Asian market.
Co-investors in that round included the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities through CDTI and its INNVIERTE fund, the public funds management company COFIDES, and Nazca Capital via its Nazca Aeroespacial y Defensa INNVIERTE I FCR fund.
Ezequiel Sánchez, PLD Space's Executive President, described the EIB deal as a “decisive milestone” that strengthens the company's ability to expand the infrastructure required to provide dependable access to space for its global pipeline of commercial and institutional customers.