Commercial upgrade to GPS powers autonomous future; New Burlingame factory enables rapid constellation deployment

BURLINGAME, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Xona, the commercial space company building the next era of global positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) infrastructure, today announced an oversubscribed $170 million Series C funding round led by Mohari Ventures Natural Capital with participation from Craft Ventures, ICONIQ, Woven Capital, NGP Capital, Samsung Next, Hexagon, and additional support from other new and existing investors. The capital will accelerate constellation deployment and manufacturing scale-up at the company’s new Burlingame, California factory, demonstrating how U.S. commercial innovation can deliver secure, resilient navigation infrastructure worldwide.

Positioning the World for Progress

“GPS has been foundational to modern life, but it was designed for a different era,” said Brian Manning, Co-founder and CEO of Xona. “Every 30 years brings a fundamental shift in how we interact with the real world, and we’re squarely in the era of physical AI, precision agriculture, next-generation defense capabilities, and more. Those technologies are here today, and the world needs navigation infrastructure that can actually deliver the precision and resilience these applications demand. This funding validates that the market is ready, the demand exists, and Xona is ready to deliver.”

Xona’s navigation service, Pulsar, is broadcast from Xona satellites in Low Earth Orbit with higher-power signals and military-grade encryption, all while remaining compatible with existing GPS devices. Over a dozen commercial receiver partners are already tracking Pulsar signals, with field testing underway across critical infrastructure, construction, agriculture, and IoT applications. Early customers in timing-critical sectors are expected to benefit from Pulsar coverage in the constellation’s early deployment phase as soon as 2027.

Why This Matters Now

Intentional GPS jamming and interference in the Strait of Hormuz has demonstrated the fragility of this critical capability, threatening navigation for the tankers and cargo ships that move a significant share of global energy and trade. With foreign governments rapidly deploying state-backed LEO positioning systems—China alone already operates more than 100 next-generation navigation satellites—the United States risks ceding leadership in a domain it created.

GPS underpins nearly every part of modern life, including critical infrastructure like power grids, telecommunications, financial systems, and emergency response. But it is increasingly vulnerable to jamming, spoofing, and disruption.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office reports GPS modernization efforts remain behind schedule and over budget, while funding uncertainty of the R-GPS program underscores how difficult it has been to add resiliency within existing deployment models.

By contrast, Xona’s commercial manufacturing model is designed for rapid deployment. At full production, the company will manufacture more navigation satellites each week than the U.S. currently produces in a year, enabling deployment of its full constellation for the cost of a single GPS satellite on orbit today. That’s the advantage commercial space brings to resiliency: faster iteration, lower cost, and the ability to launch at the speed and scale modern systems demand.

Global Reach, Trusted Partners

In addition to building manufacturing capacity in Burlingame, Xona is expanding its Montreal operations to accelerate its path to scale. A growing local team will tap Quebec’s aerospace and engineering talent to sustain Pulsar’s deployment and adoption.

Internationally, a growing London office is meeting demand across European applications while partnerships with Furuno in Japan and Topcon worldwide open doors across Asia-Pacific, demonstrating the value innovation as foundational as navigation has to power secure, resilient applications anywhere on Earth.

“GPS was designed 50 years ago, and the world has outgrown it. Signals are weak, unencrypted, easily jammed. American farmers literally use Russian and Chinese satellites because GPS isn’t enough,” said Jay Zaveri, Founder & Partner at Natural Capital and Strategic Partner to Mohari Ventures. “Xona’s Pulsar satellites fly 20 times closer to Earth and deliver signals 100 times stronger, bringing centimeter accuracy with no new hardware required. The problem is urgent, and they’ve proven they can execute at the speed and scale this moment demands.”

“Industries that rely on positioning technology are pushing far beyond what legacy GNSS systems were designed to support,” said Gordon Dale, President, Autonomous Solutions at Hexagon. “From automated construction equipment to precision agriculture, the next wave of automation depends on resilient centimeter-level positioning everywhere work happens. Pulsar’s stronger signals and advanced signal architecture will unlock new levels of reliability in challenging environments, and we’re excited to work with Xona to bring those capabilities to our customers.”

Building at Scale in the Bay Area

The latest funding enables satellite manufacturing at Xona’s Burlingame facility, reinforcing the Bay Area’s hard tech roots. Through vertical integration and a modern manufacturing approach, Xona will modernize this legacy, manufacturing and deploying Pulsar’s full 258 satellite constellation in just a few years, a timeline and cost structure impossible under traditional aerospace contracting models.

“This factory is how we move from proof-of-concept to active global infrastructure,” said Brian Manning. “We’ve already demonstrated how the technology works, now it’s about manufacturing and deploying our constellation faster than anyone thought possible. The Bay Area has always been where impossible timelines become reality, and that’s exactly what we’re doing here: building American-made positioning infrastructure bringing revolutionary capability at the speed of commercial innovation.”

About Xona

Xona is the navigational infrastructure company bringing centimeter-level certainty to any device, anywhere on Earth.

With Pulsar, the most advanced positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) constellation in Low Earth Orbit, Xona will enable absolute precision, built-in protection against jamming and spoofing, and superior power to the billions of devices that rely on GPS today. Learn more at www.xonaspace.com or connect with us via LinkedIn, or X @XonaSpace.

Contacts

Media Contact
Max Eunice, Marketing and Communications
media@xonaspace.com

(c)2026 Business Wire, Inc., All rights reserved.