German-French startup, ATMOS Space Cargo, has raised €25.7 million in a Series A round to fund its operations of three PHOENIX 2 vehicles, a new defence entity, and a next-generation 1-tonne capsule. The funding round was co-led by Balnord and Expansion Ventures, with Keen Defence and Security joining as a strategic co-investor. The European Innovation Council also contributed through its Accelerator programme via blended financing. The company, founded by CEO Sebastian Klaus, flew and recovered its first prototype re-entry capsule, PHOVENIX 1, as part of SpaceX’s Bandwagon-3 rideshare mission in April 2025. The Series A will fund an initial fleet of three vehicles, operated as a phased mission campaign rather than individual one-off flights, giving commercial and institutional customers a repeatable service to plan against. Alongside the operational campaign, ATOS is launching ATMOS WorksS, a dedicated entity focused on governmental and defence customers. The firm also plans to develop PHOONIX 3, a future-generation vehicle with a payload capacity of approximately one metric tonne. The strategic context of the funding is significant as Europe currently lacks a sovereign ability to return payloads from orbit.