Xona Space Systems

Company research

Public company, workplace, funding, and market signals

Updated Aug 5, 2026

Overview

Xona Space Systems is a privately held space-navigation infrastructure company building a commercial Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellation to provide resilient, high-precision Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT). Its stated goal is to remove navigation limitations for autonomous and other safety- or accuracy-critical technologies.

Primary product

Pulsar: a high-integrity, centimeter-level LEO satellite-navigation service designed to complement or eventually provide an alternative to GPS. It uses stronger, authenticated signals and is designed for resistance to jamming and spoofing while remaining compatible with existing GNSS receiver ecosystems.

Founded

2019

Headquarters

Burlingame, California, United States

Team size

Approximately 95–106 public estimates; LinkedIn/company data reported 98

Industry

Space Research and Technology

Sub-industry

Satellite navigation; positioning, navigation and timing (PNT); aerospace and defense infrastructure

Offices

Burlingame, California, United States (headquarters and satellite manufacturing)

Montreal, Quebec, Canada (engineering and development)

London, England, United Kingdom (GNSS and business roles)

Business model

Commercial recurring satellite-navigation/PNT service

Enterprise and government contracts and demonstrations

Receiver, development-kit and ecosystem integrations

Vertically integrated satellite design, manufacturing and operations

Funding

Stage

Series C / venture-backed growth stage

Total raised

$322.6M

Latest round

Series C · Mar 2026

Latest amount

$170M

Series C

Mar 2026 · Mohari Ventures Natural Capital

$170M

Series B

Jun 2025 · Craft Ventures

$72M

STRATFI non-dilutive award

Jun 2025 · SpaceWERX / U.S. Space Force

$20M

Series A

May 2024 · Future Ventures and Seraphim Space

$19M

Seed

Sep 2021 · Seraphim Space

$8M

NSF grant

May 2020 · National Science Foundation

$225K

Corporate round

Apr 2019

People & investors

Leadership

Brian Manning

Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer

Tyler Reid

Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer

Adrien Perkins

Co-founder and Vice President of Engineering

Jay Wakenshaw

Chief Operating Officer

Jonathan Wakenshaw

Chief Operating Officer (reported in 2025 sources; company leadership pages now identify Jay Wakenshaw as COO)

Bryan Chan

Co-founder and Vice President of Corporate Strategy

Kazuma Gunning

Co-founder and Director of Navigation and Software

Jerami Martin

Co-founder and Director of Payload Mechanical

Paul Tarantino

Co-founder and Director of Integration and Test

Tim Graham

Vice President of Satellite

Investors

Lockheed Martin Ventures

Mohari Ventures Natural Capital

Murata Electronics

NGP Capital

Samsung Next

Seraphim Space / Seraphim Ventures

Space Capital

SpaceWERX / U.S. Space Force

Stellar Ventures

Toyota Ventures

Woven Capital

Work & culture

Mission-driven, technically intensive and hands-on aerospace/production environment. Careers messaging emphasizes work with real-world impact, measuring results rather than timecards, collaboration across hardware and software, and rapid scaling from demonstration satellites to a commercial constellation.

Compensation

Public job postings show substantial salary bands, commonly approximately $95,000–$218,000 for engineering/software roles and $250,000–$350,000 for a CFO role, depending on position and location. Equity is signaled, but complete compensation plans are not public. Historical H-1B data shows at least one approved petition, but does not establish a current sponsorship policy.

Benefits

U.S. employees: company covers 95% of medical premiums

50% premium coverage for dependents

Medical plans with HSA and FSA options

401(k) and Roth 401(k) options

Open/flexible vacation policy

Equitable paid parental leave

Ownership/equity culture

Product & market

Pricing

Not publicly disclosed; apparently enterprise/government contracting and negotiated service, integration and development-kit pricing rather than self-serve consumer pricing.

Differentiators

—LEO architecture provides substantially stronger received signals than legacy MEO GNSS
—Centimeter-level positioning and high-precision timing
—Authenticated signals and intended resilience to jamming/spoofing
—Backward-compatible approach intended to work with existing receiver infrastructure
—Cloud-based atomic-clock architecture intended to lower spacecraft cost and improve scalability
—Vertically integrated satellite production and mission operations
—Planned 258-satellite constellation and commercial focus on autonomy, infrastructure and defense

Technology

Low Earth Orbit satellite constellation

Authenticated GNSS/PNT signals

L-band and C-band radio-frequency systems

Cloud architecture for atomic clocks

Signal processing and GNSS

Embedded Linux

C/C++

Python

Bash

CMake

Yocto

QEMU

GitLab CI/CD

FPGA/SystemVerilog/Verilog

Docker

Kubernetes/Helm

PostgreSQL

Django

Customers

U.S. Space Force / SpaceWERX

U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory

Trimble

NovAtel

Septentrio

QinetiQ

Astroscale

Spirent

Hoptroff

Fibrolan

Timebeat

Competitors

Government GPS/GNSS systems

Galileo, BeiDou and GLONASS

Satelles

NextNav

Geodnet

Other commercial resilient-PNT and satellite-navigation providers

Scale & contact

Estimated revenue

Approximately $5M–$10M annually; one company-profile estimate reports $7.6M, but this is not audited or company-confirmed.

Signals & risks

Other

Jul 2026

FCC conditional authorization covers the planned 258-satellite constellation but initially authorizes only 16 spacecraft; further orbital-debris review is required for later deployment, with milestone deadlines through 2035.

Source

Latest news

Xona secures spectrum approval for 250-satellite navigation network

SpaceNews · Aug 2026

The FCC conditionally authorized Xona to deploy and operate the first 16 spacecraft of its planned 258-satellite L-band constellation, subject to further orbital-debris review and deployment milestones.

$170M Series C to Accelerate Pulsar's Path to Scale

Xona · Mar 2026

Xona announced a $170 million Series C led by Mohari Ventures Natural Capital to expand its Burlingame manufacturing facility and deploy Pulsar.

Xona tallies $92 million as it sends Pulsar-0 to space

Axios · Jun 2025

Coverage of Xona's $92 million combined Series B and SpaceWERX STRATFI financing, the Pulsar-0 launch, and target markets including automotive, logistics, mining and defense.

Xona Space Systems Announces Collaboration with Trimble to Deliver Next-Gen Navigation Services

Xona · Mar 2025

Xona and Trimble announced a collaboration intended to bring Xona's next-generation satellite-navigation services into precision-positioning and receiver ecosystems.

Xona Space Systems closes $19M Series A to build out ultra-accurate GPS alternative

TechCrunch · May 2024

Xona's Series A supported its LEO constellation and beta Pulsar operations; the article describes centimeter-level accuracy and the company's cloud atomic-clock architecture.

Open Positions

55 jobs at Xona Space Systems

Opérateur(trice) de Vol Spatial - Flight/Spacecraft Operator

On-site

Engineering

Montreal, Canada

1d ago

On-site

Full-time