Charter Space brings fintech to spacecraft insurance and is showing off its stuff at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025

When Yuk Chi Chan left for construction Charter space In late 2021, it was after a long stretch of pain.

As mission manager at a satellite bus startup, he coordinated the company’s first demonstration mission — and he had to do it with critical data scattered across Microsoft Excel.

In addition to managing internal engineering operations, Chan, a former aerospace lawyer, had to repackage the same critical engineering and program data for various external audiences.

“It was all the same data. It was about the same physical object,” he told TechCrunch. “I was like, this is nuts… why can’t I have some kind of unified interface, or some kind of unified data model, that actually represents this thing correctly to whoever is looking at it?”

This inspired him to found the charter. The company isn’t so much a dev tool for aerospace engineers (although it’s used that way), as it is a fintech company for aerospace, Chan describes. The software captures manufacturing and testing data directly from the source, and this dataset then feeds an underwriting interface that is directly connected to the six largest insurance carriers in the market.

The charter space is a Startup battlefield At the top 20 finalists TechCrunch Disrupt 2025Which runs this week in San Francisco.

The goal is faster, cheaper, and more reliable risk assessment for spacecraft insurance, and ultimately for new types of credit and nondilutive funding for space companies looking outside of venture capital and public markets.

“The biggest technical risk that we’ve had to overcome is building that underwriting model and starting to understand what things are most important, how to weight them, and really starting to layer that risk analysis piece on top of all the data that we already have,” Chan said.

He noted that small satellites often fail within the first 90 days in orbit due to some internal technical malfunction, a pattern the company is trying to capture and price.

Spacecraft insurance is rare. Fewer than 300 of the roughly 13,000 satellites in orbit are insured, Chan said. Unlike other insurance products, the problem is not fraud or misleading incentives; Instead, it is simply the cost of underwriting.

Today, operators assemble a tome of technical documentation, submit it to a broker, and then wait months as that information is accepted by technical underwriters. That time shows up in premiums: “I’ve heard of people being quoted up to 80%,” Chan said.

Charter aims to reduce these costs by providing a complete picture of all technical details so that underwriters do not have to spend months evaluating a single risk. In turn, more assets can be insured, which means more risk can be pooled and the market is healthier overall.

“We want more satellites to be insured, because that means that overall everything is much, much safer. If we can expand insurance coverage, one, it’s good for the space industry base, more companies have a safety net … but it’s much healthier for the overall economy, because then it encourages global investment from different alternative capital sources,” Chan said. “You’re not just dependent on VC or some growth equity. You can start bringing in debt, credit, a lot of different options that you have in any other kind of advanced industry.”

The charter tool is already live with companies and universities; It has a lightweight product for customers who only want insurance benefits rather than a full suite of engineering management features.

The company also announced the acquisition block to TechCrunch Plover ParametricsA Y combinator-backed insurtech focused primarily on climate parametric products. It’s a move that Chan says will allow Charter to provide “white-glove” service by setting policies directly without relying on intermediaries.

The bigger picture is unlocking cheap capital sources for aerospace companies. If underwriting becomes more standardized, it paves the way for more financing options.

“We have to bring in banks, we have to bring in lenders, because that’s a much more efficient capital source, both from a cost of capital perspective as well as an incentive perspective,” Chan said.

If you want to learn more about Charter Space from the company — as well as check out dozens of others, hear their pitches and listen to guest speakers on four different stages — join us at Disrupt, Monday through Wednesday in San Francisco. Learn more here.