Monaco-based space technology company Venturi Space has announced plans to increase its investment in the construction of its new Toulouse facility by €150 million.
Founded by billionaire Gildo Pastor in 2020, Venturi Space manufactures technology for lunar and Martian mobility solutions. In January 2026, during a meeting organised by the Association of Professional Aeronautics and Space Journalists, the company’s Director of Space Affairs, Antonio Delfino, announced that the company would invest €100 million to build a new 10,000-square-metre factory in Toulouse. Delfino explained that the facility would later be expanded to 16,000 square metres.
On 1 June, Venturi Space announced that it had increased its expected investment in the new facility to €250 million. The announcement indicated that it would no longer begin with the initial smaller facility and would instead move directly to the full 16,000-square-metre planned “technology centre.” This likely accounts for the additional €150 million in funding.
According to the company’s 1 June press release, the facility will be used for the “design and manufacture of critical technologies for lunar and Martian mobility, as well as [for] the assembly of the rovers developed by the company.”
“I have always believed that mobility would be one of the keys to space exploration. Today, the momentum is there,” said Gildo Pastor, Chairman of Venturi Space. “With this €250 million investment and the creation of nearly 200 jobs, Venturi Space is taking a decisive step forward. We have the technologies, the experience, the partners and, soon, the industrial tool to go further.”
Venturi Space is providing wheels, batteries, and battery management systems to US-based Venturi Astrolab for use aboard its rovers. During a 26 May event, NASA announced that Venturi Astrolab was one of two companies selected to build rovers for the agency’s Artemis programme. The rovers will be used by astronauts to traverse the lunar surface and will also operate autonomously between crewed missions.
Despite the similarities between the names of Venturi Space and Venturi Astrolab, the two are separate companies, one based in Europe and the other in the US. A Venturi Astrolab spokesperson told European Spaceflight that the shared name stems from a strategic partnership between the two companies.
“Astrolab has a strategic partnership with Venturi Space. This partnership is reflected in the formal name of the company, Venturi Astrolab. As part of that partnership, Venturi engineers have advised Astrolab on battery technology, tires, human factors, and other technology. In turn, Astrolab has agreements in place to purchase some of these technologies to incorporate in its rovers. The strategic partnership was announced in 2022.”
In addition to work on key elements of rovers for NASA, Venturi Space is also involved in rover initiatives in Europe. In June 2025, the company unveiled MONA LUNA, a European-built lunar rover “designed to support the ambitions of the European Space Agency and the French CNES,” The company explained that it aimed to have the rover operating on the surface of the lunar South Pole by 2030. In February 2026, ESA awarded the company a contract for a “risk-reduction study” focused on mobility, power supply, and thermal regulation technologies for future lunar rovers.
Keep European Spaceflight Independent
Your donation will help European Spaceflight to continue digging into the stories others miss. Every euro keeps our reporting alive.
