Psionic is entering a new phase of growth as it moves from mission-specific deployments to scaled production across space, aerospace, and autonomous systems.
In December, New North Ventures announced a strategic investment in Psionic, a company developing high-precision navigation and sensing technologies for GPS-denied environments. The investment is intended to accelerate Psionic’s expansion across sea, land, air, and space applications, particularly as demand increases for autonomous systems that cannot rely on traditional satellite navigation.
Psionic’s technology has already been proven in some of the most challenging operating conditions. The company’s TRL 9 coherent lidar solution has flown on lunar missions and demonstrated performance throughout the full lunar landing trajectory. Early customers and partners include ispace, NASA, JPL, Axiom, and Astrobotic, positioning Psionic as a trusted provider at a time when precision navigation is becoming mission-critical.
The timing of the investment follows a pivotal year for Psionic. In 2025, the company introduced two new products, one designed for spacecraft and another for terrestrial surface vehicles, signaling a shift away from a purely project-driven model toward a scalable product portfolio. With those products in market, the company is now focused on building the operational infrastructure required to support manufacturing, qualification, and broader deployment.
“Precision navigation has been a critical challenge for the aerospace and defense sectors,” said Steve Sandford, CEO of Psionic. “Psionic’s team uses decades of coherent sensing experience to pioneer breakthrough system solutions and our latest platform represents an industry standard for GPS denied conditions.”
New North Ventures brings more than capital to the partnership. The firm specializes in building and scaling dual-use technology companies and is expected to play an active role as Psionic strengthens its internal operating systems and prepares for production at scale. That includes accelerating development timelines, building manufacturing capabilities, and expanding access to defense and intelligence community customers.
“Precision sensing and navigation are foundational to the next wave of autonomy in space and aerospace,” said Jeremy Hitchcock, co-founder of New North Ventures.
Looking ahead, Psionic plans to advance qualification of its navigation systems for aerospace applications that are immune to 5G and 6G radio interference, while continuing development of Photonics Integrated Circuits that enable new use cases in aviation and ground-based autonomy. These capabilities are increasingly important as commercial space, defense, and advanced mobility platforms operate in more complex and contested environments.
For Psionic’s leadership, the investment represents a clear inflection point.
“Psionic has the ability to be the industry leader across these domains,” said Jerry Miller, Chairman of Psionic. “New North Ventures’ operational company building expertise will set up Psionic for their next phase of growth.”
With flight-proven technology already operating beyond Earth, Psionic is now focused on scaling precision navigation systems for broader deployment, positioning the company to play a central role as autonomy expands across space, aerospace, and defense.
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