Step Lab, a Korean space-mechanism and small-satellite systems company, has closed a Series A funding round totaling KRW 11 billion. The round was backed by seven investors: Company K Partners, Kolon Investment, IBK Venture Investment, Mirae Asset Venture Investment, SL Investment, the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund, and D.Camp.
According to the company, the round’s final size exceeded its original target as additional investors sought to join during the fundraising process. This Series A follows a smaller KRW 3 billion round the company closed in 2024 with Company K Partners and Industrial Bank of Korea.
Founded in June 2021 by Oh Hyun-ung, a professor at Korea Aerospace University specializing in satellite vibration reduction, Step Lab is a South Korean company that develops space-grade mechanism technology used to grip, release, deploy, and actuate satellites — capabilities essential for connecting and separating satellites from launch vehicles and for deploying satellite structures in orbit.
The company’s flagship product is a launch-vibration-reducing separation ring that connects and detaches satellites from rocket launch vehicles. Building on this, Step Lab has also developed STEP POD, a proprietary launch-vibration-reducing CubeSat deployer that integrates its in-house vibration isolation system (VIS). STEP POD will be used aboard DaejeonSAT-1, a 16U CubeSat scheduled to fly on Korea’s fifth Nuri (KSLV-II) rocket launch, giving the company its first space flight heritage for the product.
Step Lab has also expanded into payload technology, becoming the first Korean company to develop a 4-meter-class, three-stage deployable SAR (synthetic aperture radar) mesh antenna — a core technology for SAR satellite payloads. More recently, through Korea’s Scale-up TIPS program, the company has been developing an AI-based zoom optical module for space domain awareness (SDA), which combines AI image processing with high-precision gimbal technology to enable both wide-area and narrow-area search from a single camera, improving detection and tracking of objects in orbit.
Step Lab also built full small-satellite systems-integration capability through its work developing DaejeonSAT-1, which will carry a selfie camera to photograph the satellite itself and confirm its operational status after reaching orbit. Step Lab said it will use the new capital to build out mass-production systems for its space mechanism products, particularly those that have secured flight heritage, and to accelerate global commercialization.
