French company has already mapped $37 million in immediate revenue opportunities, and more than $400 million over five years — prior to new budgets. Partnership follows Nebex’s €100 million Industrial Return Initiative for French space companies.
Paris, September 9, 2026 - Interstellar Lab, the French-American company building AI-powered systems for food production and regenerative life support on Earth and in Space, today announced a partnership with Nebex, the commercial exchange for cross-border space procurement.
Interstellar Lab's lunar greenhouse Bloom
Together, the two companies have mapped more than $37 million in identifiable revenue opportunities available to Interstellar Lab now, and more than $400 million over the next five years, for Interstellar Lab’s food-production, plant-cultivation, and regenerative life-support systems in Low Earth Orbit and on the Moon. These figures reflect sovereign demand that is already visible and accessible. They exclude incremental budgets or commercial opportunities still to be announced.
Life-support becomes real when it is treated as infrastructure — with customers, contracts, and industrial return — not as a one-off demonstration. Nebex gives French deeptech a path to those contracts without waiting for a new budget cycle. The $37 million we see in the next two years, and the $400 million over a decade in LEO and on the Moon, is demand that already exists.
Barbara Belvisi (CEO & Founder at Interstellar Lab)
The partnership builds on Nebex’s €100 million Industrial Return Initiative, launched in France on 17 August 2026. The program converts eligible cross-border space spending into commercial value for French space companies, matching €1 of qualifying foreign expenditure with €1 of industrial return at home. Participating startups also gain access to Nebex’s network of sovereign buyers, commercial opportunities, and capital.
Opening sovereign demand for food and life support
As activity expands across commercial LEO stations and under lunar programs, demand is shifting from demonstration payloads to operational systems that produce food, recycle air and water, and support longer missions. Interstellar Lab’s portfolio is built for that shift: Eden payloads for commercial stations, Bloom for Mission Little Prince on the lunar surface with Astrolab, and the MoonPod program targeted for 2028.
Nebex provides the missing commercial layer. It matches that supply with aggregated sovereign and commercial demand, reduces cross-border procurement friction, and turns industrial-return policy into contracted revenue.
“Space is no longer constrained by technology. It is constrained by how money and industrial value crosses borders. Interstellar Lab is what the France initiative was built for. For every euro France puts into an eligible space program, we structure the deal so industrial value returns through real contracts.”—
Tejpaul Bhatia (Co-Founder and CEO at Nebex.)
What the partnership covers
Under the partnership, Interstellar Lab will use the Nebex platform to:
Access aggregated sovereign and commercial demand for plant-growth payloads, bioregenerative modules, and related services in LEO and on the Moon;
Qualify eligible cross-border space expenditure under Nebex’s Industrial Return Initiative, so French industrial value can be captured on contracts that would otherwise sit offshore;
Structure multi-year commercial pathways aligned with existing station and lunar mission timeline;
Engage capital that can underwrite delivery, not only R&D, as programs move from demonstration to operations.
The $37 million immediate pipeline and $400 million five-year outlook cover LEO food-production and plant-research systems, plus lunar surface and habitat-adjacent regenerative life-support infrastructure. They are opportunity estimates derived from mapped demand on the Nebex network and known program roadmaps, prior to any new national or agency budget increase.
Interstellar Lab's plant growth unit Eden
Context
Global government space spending reached $138 billion in 2025. Supply remains concentrated in the United States and Europe, while a growing set of sovereign programs seek access to capabilities they do not produce domestically. Nebex estimates a multi-tens-of-billions annual export gap. Its France initiative was created so that accessing the best global capability and building a domestic industrial base are no longer treated as a trade-off.
Interstellar Lab develops autonomous BioPods to grow plants more efficiently on Earth and in Space. Interstellar won NASA Deep Space Food Challenge and is flying its payload in 2027 with Vast (LEO) and in 2028 Astrolab (Moon). On Earth, Interstellar works with L’Oréal, Robertet, and dsm-firmenich and provides them with autonomous greenhouses for high value plant production. The company closed a $15 million Series Seed in June 2026, bringing total capital raised to $17 million.
Nebex was founded in 2025 by Tejpaul Bhatia and Anand Subramanian, former Axiom Space executives, and Manlio Di Stefano, former Italian Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs. The company raised a $30 million seed round led by GV (Google Ventures) in June 2026 and provides a commercial exchange to connect space suppliers, sovereign buyers, and capital. In France, Nebex is led by Etienne Cassuto.
About Interstellar Lab
Interstellar Lab builds AI-controlled biospheric systems to grow life autonomously on Earth and in space. Its mission is to preserve biodiversity on Earth and expand it beyond the planet. Learn more at interstellarlab.com.
About Nebex
Nebex is building the market infrastructure platform for the global space economy to connect space companies with sovereign buyers and the capital required to close and settle cross-border programs, with a model designed to deliver 100 percent industrial return on eligible foreign space spending. Learn more at nebex.com.
Media contacts
Interstellar Lab
press@interstellarlab.com|contact@interstellarlab.earth
Nebex
Media inquiries via nebex.com
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Forward-looking statements. Opportunity figures are estimates based on currently visible demand and program roadmaps. They are not booked backlog and do not constitute guidance. Actual results will depend on contract awards, mission schedules, export controls, and financing.
