Radio Frequency Companies

HawkEye 360

Herndon, United States commercial

HawkEye 360 listed on the New York Stock Exchange as HAWK on 7 May 2026, raising about $437.5 million net at $26 a share. HawkEye 360 is a geospatial analytics company operating the world's first commercial constellation for radio frequency signal detection and geolocation from space. Headquartered in Herndon, Virginia, HawkEye 360 provides RF intelligence for maritime domain awareness, spectrum management, emergency response, and national security applications. In 2024, HawkEye 360 significantly expanded its constellation with multiple satellite cluster launches. Clusters 8 and 9 launched on SpaceX Bandwagon-1 in April 2024, followed by Cluster 10 in August 2024 bringing the constellation to 30 RF geolocation microsatellites, and Cluster 11 in December 2024. The company aims to operate 36 satellites across 12 clusters, with each cluster containing three satellites working together to trilaterate RF signals. Each HawkEye satellite features software-defined radios capable of detecting a wide range of radio frequencies simultaneously. When all three satellites in a cluster detect a common signal, they trilaterate its location with high accuracy. This capability enables detection and tracking of vessels with AIS transponders disabled, emergency beacon localization for search and rescue, and spectrum management analysis. HawkEye 360 acquired Maxar Intelligence's RF Solutions business in December 2023, expanding spectrum scanning capabilities. The company provides RF data to government and commercial customers for maritime situational awareness, illegal fishing detection, sanctions enforcement, and defense intelligence applications. HawkEye 360 continues expanding constellation capacity to meet growing demand for space-based RF geolocation services.

Acorde Technologies is a Spanish electronics manufacturer founded in 1999 and headquartered in Santander, Cantabria, that designs, develops and manufactures radio-frequency (RF) and microwave subsystems for space and defence applications, marketed under the tagline "Space & Defence RF Experts." The company's product portfolio, organised under mythologically themed brand names, spans the core RF building blocks used in satellite communications payloads and ground terminals: Zeus (solid-state power boosters, SSPBs), Hercules (solid-state power amplifiers, SSPAs), Hermes (low-noise block downconverters, LNBs), Horus (low-noise amplifiers, LNAs), Eos (block upconverters, BUCs), Nyx (block downconverters, BDCs) and Jano (transceivers, TRX), covering X-band and Ka-band frequencies used by telecommunications, Earth observation and navigation satellites. Acorde positions its hardware as flight-proven, citing users across more than 20 countries and all six continents as well as payloads operating beyond Earth, and reports more than €10 million in annual revenue with a workforce of over 55 people. The company holds Spain's "PYME Innovadora" (Innovative SME) designation, ISO 9001 quality certification and AQAP 2110 NATO defence-quality standard compliance, and has completed more than 100 research and development projects, reflecting its role as a specialist RF component supplier rather than a prime satellite or launch-vehicle manufacturer. Acorde supplies RF subsystems to satellite manufacturers, defence primes and ground-segment integrators rather than operating its own satellites or launch systems; its role in the space value chain is as a component-level specialist embedded in larger spacecraft and ground-terminal programmes across the European and international space and defence industry.

Unseenlabs

Rennes, France commercial

Unseenlabs SAS, founded in 2015 and based in Rennes, France, is a geospatial intelligence company specializing in satellite-based Radio Frequency (RF) detection for maritime domain awareness. The company provides unique geolocation data by detecting RF signals emitted by ships, enabling the tracking of vessels – including those that do not transmit standard location data, often referred to as “dark vessels” – across vast ocean areas. This capability significantly enhances existing maritime surveillance systems and provides improved situational awareness. Unseenlabs’ core technology centers around its growing constellation of RF-detecting satellites. The company delivers precise geolocation coordinates, accurate timestamps, and detailed RF technical parameters for each detected emitter. Beyond raw data, Unseenlabs offers data fusion services and intelligence reports to facilitate the identification of dark vessels and provide in-depth contextual analysis. Recent achievements include the successful launch of new satellites, BRO-20 & BRO-17, and a collaboration with S&P Global to further enhance maritime surveillance capabilities. Unseenlabs serves a diverse customer base spanning government entities, commercial businesses involved in trade and intelligence, offshore facility operators, fisheries management, marine insurance companies, NGOs, and shipowners. Unseenlabs differentiates itself by providing a critical capability for monitoring uncooperative vessels and filling data gaps in traditional maritime tracking, offering a unique value proposition for organizations requiring comprehensive and reliable ocean surveillance. The company’s technology is initially focused on the maritime sector but is positioned for expansion into broader applications leveraging space-based RF detection.

Kleos Space

Luxembourg City, Luxembourg commercial

Kleos Space SA, founded in 2017 and based in Luxembourg City, is a space-based geolocation intelligence company. Kleos specializes in collecting, processing, and delivering data derived from Radio Frequency (RF) transmissions detected from space. This data is used to locate and identify signals emanating from land and sea, providing insights into potentially hidden or illegal activity. The company’s core offering centers around a proprietary platform that processes RF data collected by its constellation of satellites. This allows Kleos to create and deliver actionable, analytic-ready geospatial intelligence products, offering a cost-effective and complementary data source to traditional intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) methods. Unlike terrestrial-based assets, Kleos’ satellite network provides wide-area surveillance capabilities, unaffected by weather, distance, or sea state. Kleos focuses on applications within the defence & security sectors, as well as critical areas like maritime safety and border protection. Specific use cases highlighted include counter-piracy, illegal fishing detection, search and rescue operations, people and drug trafficking monitoring, and improving overall border security. The company provides access to both recent and archived data products through a simple API on a recurring license basis, positioning itself as a provider of accessible and timely RF-based intelligence to a growing market. Kleos Space is publicly listed on the ASX and Frankfurt Stock Exchange (ASX: KSS, Frankfurt: KS1).

Xovian Aerospace is an Indian space-technology startup based in Bengaluru, founded in 2019 by Ankit Bhateja and Raghav Sharma; the company's current radio-frequency-satellite business was publicly presented as early as 2023. Xovian is developing AI-native radio-frequency (RF) reconnaissance satellites intended to detect, locate and characterise radio-frequency emissions from ships, aircraft and other assets that have disabled or lack transponders (such as AIS or ADS-B transmitters), providing geospatial and signals-intelligence products for maritime, aviation, logistics and defense customers where conventional optical or radar satellite imagery cannot track 'dark' targets. The company has raised early-stage funding to build and launch its satellites: a $2.5 million pre-seed round in August 2025 led by Piper Serica and TurboStart, with participation from IPV and Eaglewings Ventures, followed by a further $2 million investment in April 2026 from stock-market investor Ashish Kacholia. As of the funding announcements in 2026, the company had not yet disclosed a satellite launch, with proceeds earmarked for development of its AI-powered RF satellite infrastructure. Xovian Aerospace is an active, privately held startup operating in India's growing small-satellite and geospatial-intelligence sector, alongside other Indian RF and geo-intelligence ventures.

Quadsat is a Danish company, founded in 2017 and based in Odense, that builds drone-mounted and UAV-integrated radio-frequency sensing and electronic-warfare payloads. The company's origins are in drone-based antenna-testing equipment for the satellite-communications industry, and it has since extended that sensing expertise into full-spectrum electronic-warfare products under its SpectraLoc line, which detects RF signals, jamming and interference and geolocates emitters; the company says SpectraLoc can detect signals at up to 150 km and geolocate them at up to 100 km, for integration on Group 2-5 UAV platforms across air, land, sea, cyber and space domains. In July 2025 Quadsat announced a €5 million ($5.8 million) Series A extension led by Join Capital and North Ventures, with continued participation from existing backers Seraphim Space Capital, Denmark's state export-and-investment fund EIFO, Helge Munk Holding and TPC Management. The round was explicitly aimed at expanding the company's push into the defense market, building on its earlier commercial satellite-antenna-testing business. Co-founder and President Joakim Espeland has described electronic warfare as a critical, existential necessity in modern defense, reflecting the company's strategic shift toward defense customers. Quadsat's roughly eight-year operating history and its prior commercial base in satellite-antenna calibration give it more established revenue and customer relationships than most of the newer startups covered in the same funding cycle, even as its most recent raise is aimed at a newer, defense-focused product line.