FARE INSIEME STARTUP – Ep. 14 – Revolv Space, the space start-up that chases the sun to double energy

Marco Sala, Filippo Oggionni, Aleksander Fiuk and Michał Grendysz developed their start-up Revolv Space while studying at university. Today they supply satellite manufacturers with solar panels that rotate by chasing the sun to double the energy produced. Giampaolo Colletti interviews Marco Sala, CEO of Revolv Space, for FARE INSIEME STARTUP

FARE INSIEME STARTUP is the spin-off of the FARE INSIEME project dedicated to presenting some businesses that form part of the Primo Ventures portfolio, a company that manages funds specialising in the digital sector and in new space economy. Confindustria Emilia has started up a partnership with Primo Ventures with the objective of providing its associates with new opportunities for growth thanks to the presentation of the most innovative start-ups on the market. Here are some of their stories.

by Giampaolo Colletti
@gpcolletti

Some meetings are out of this world. In the true sense of the word. Because they are born from brilliant intuitions that, when put together, become scalable and successful start-ups. Ultimately, this is a space story. Because it is the story of Revolv Space, a company born from the meeting of four students during their university years at Delft University of Technology, in the Netherlands. «Together, we shared not only a passion for Space, but also the belief that it was the sector in which the greatest progress for humanity would be made. We always wanted to build something meaningful and this pushed us to undertake a path that was as exciting as it was challenging. The first steps were characterised by enthusiasm, but also by many difficulties: developing the first prototypes, learning to communicate our vision to investors and overcoming the many nos we heard. I particularly remember an initial presentation with an investor that didn’t go as we had hoped. It was a moment of fundamental growth: I understood how important perseverance is and how every experience, positive or negative, can teach something useful for the future.» Here, these are the words of Marco Sala, twenty-seven-year-old CEO of Revolv Space. A young man who managed to transform his passion for Space and engineering into a start-up. After high school and a three-year degree in space engineering at the Polytechnic University of Milan, Marco chose to move to the Netherlands for his master’s degree. And from there, everything changed.

Company profile. Revolv Space today is a space start-up with the goal of revolutionising energy production in space. «We design, build and sell components and power systems for space infrastructure, currently focusing on small satellites with masses ranging from a few to five hundred kilogrammes», says Sala. The headquarters are in Turin, in a city with a strong connection to the space industry. In just over a year, the start-up has grown from 7 people in 2023 to 19 in 2025, coming from different nationalities, a unique mix of young talents and professionals with a long experience in the sector, and with further open positions in the company. «This growth reflects our ambition and ability to attract high-level talent in a complex and competitive sector. Despite the typically long development and qualification times of the space sector, we are particularly proud to have generated our first commercial revenues already in 2023. We worked hard to demonstrate the quality and reliability of our products, gaining the trust of our first customers. We expect significant growth in the coming years, supported by an expanding team, an increasingly rich commercial pipeline and a technology offer that meets the needs of a rapidly evolving market», says Sala. Revolv Space is a supplier of electrical power components and systems for satellites, with a current focus on on-board power generation. The team offers a product portfolio that includes deployable solar panels and advanced rotation systems for solar panels. One of the flagship products is SARA, which stands for Solar Array Rotary Actuator. This is an innovative electromechanical component that integrates with solar panels to automatically orient them towards the Sun, maximising the production of energy. SARA is designed to double the energy capacity of satellites, while maintaining a simple, economical and reliable design. After all, it is all about the space economy. Because the critical part – which Revolv Space wants to solve – is related to the cost of energy for the space infrastructure. The more energy you have, the more things you can do. But today the cost per Watt generated is still too high and this slows down the development of new infrastructures. And here the young entrepreneurs have clear ideas: reduce the cost of energy in space, reducing the euro per Watt ratio.

Present and future. The start-up has five missions in space to date and almost 3 million euros raised with the first rounds. «We received the support of Primo Space, one of the main European funds in the space sector, and of Takeoff, an investment vehicle promoted by CDP and Plug & Play. These investors not only believed in our vision, but also supported us in making strategic decisions that were fundamental to our growth», recalls Marco Sala. A story that links two countries like Italy and the Netherlands and that goes as far as Space. «Revolv was born in the Netherlands, but it found in Italy, and in particular in Turin, an ideal environment for growth. We maintain our footprint with a Dutch subsidiary, but we operate mainly in Turin. We actively collaborate with national companies and research centres, but our focus is inevitably international. The Space Economy is a global sector and our products are designed to meet the needs of customers all over the world, from Europe to the United States, all the way to Asia.»

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