Reza Fetanat

Reza Fetanat
Occupation	Co-founder and CTO of Spaceium Inc
Known for	In-space refueling technology

Reza Fetanat is a Canadian entrepreneur and mechanical engineer who is the co-founder and chief technology officer (CTO) of Spaceium Inc, a startup developing fully automated in-space refueling and repair stations. The company participated in Y Combinator's Summer 2024 batch.

Early career and education

Fetanat studied mechanical engineering at the University of Ottawa. While there, he served as co-captain and chief engineer of the University of Ottawa Rocketry team for approximately three and a half years. Under his involvement, the team built high-power rockets designed to reach altitudes of 30,000 feet. He led the structures team and worked on components including fiberglass structure tubes, rocket nosecones, carbon fiber pressure vessels, and ground equipment. During his time with the rocketry program, the team successfully launched three rockets, and Fetanat personally developed four rocket engines and built a propulsion stability model. He also constructed several robots, including a rocket tracker used for recovery operations.

Career

Fetanat co-founded Spaceium Inc alongside Ashi Dissanayake. The company builds fully automated space stations designed to refuel and repair spacecraft in orbit. Spaceium's stations are engineered to store and transfer both cryogenic and non-cryogenic fuels with what the company describes as zero loss during storage and transfer. The stations use a proprietary modular robotic arm to transfer fuel to spacecraft of varying designs. The company's customers include operators of launch vehicles, orbital transfer vehicles, moon landers, and other spacecraft that require increased payload capacity or extended mission range.

As of early 2025, Spaceium reported having secured $86.1 million in binding commercial contracts, with an additional $230 million in its pipeline and $1 billion in letters of intent. The company raised an oversubscribed $6.3 million seed round led by Initialized Capital in January 2025. Spaceium has stated that its hardware has been successfully tested and is planned for a space launch.

The company's long-term goal is to build a network of service hubs along what it describes as a "space superhighway" connecting Earth to the Moon and Mars. Spaceium is based in Ottawa, Canada, and operates in the hard tech, robotics, space exploration, and aerospace sectors.

Fetanat is a member of the Forbes Councils. He has described his areas of expertise as including rocket engine design, fluid dynamics, project planning, and team leadership.