 After each Space Academy, the SpaceUp team conducted a brief survey with all attendees to find out how the event had helped their startup. We’re delighted to say that we have received all the results, and are very pleased with the feedback.
A massive 98% of startups found the services we provided to be useful, with advice and opportunities regarding funding being the most valued. Business model analysis and network opportunities with investors were also highly valued, and led to an average of 11 industry contacts per startup. Space Academy Paris attendee Mirko Ross, representing Asvin, was one of those pleased with his experience, saying, “the seminars & talks by various industry experts were engaging for us and we were able to expand our network for potential project partners and collaborators. We were also delighted to receive feedback on our business development and products.” We’re also very pleased to see the progress made by our selected startups since their Space Academy, with an incredible 73% of startups having employed more members of staff since they used our services. The average company has grown by three employees, which is simply excellent. One company which has made fantastic progress since it attended Space Academy Europe is Prometheus Space Technologies, recent winners of the NSE Expoforum Pitch Competition 2021. By winning the best scaleup award, Prometheus were given the chance to pitch in front of experts, innovators and investors. Its CEO Eleftherios Plafountzis thanked SpaceUp for the support we have provided, saying, “the SpaceUp program was the greatest organization that believed and trusted our team's efforts and provided us with astonishing assistance. We are enormously thankful and proud that we were part of the SpaceUp community!” We’re delighted to have been able to have helped so many startups grow over the lifetime of our project, and we can’t wait to see their future successes. For more information on our startups and to track their progress, visit the brochure section of our website.
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 Space Academy Europe, our fifth Space Academy, took place on the 16-18th June 2021 organised by EBAN – European Business Angel Network. The Space Academy was fully embedded into the EBAN 2021 Annual Congress, and entrepreneurs had the opportunity to attend sessions on topics of investment as well as the SpaceUp workshops. The EBAN Annual Congress is one of Europe’s largest international private investment and entrepreneurship events, bringing together early stage investors; business angels; VCs; entrepreneurs; accelerators; corporates and startups.
As a result of travel restrictions due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the Space Academy and the EBAN Annual Congress were delivered through a virtual platform, which allowed companies from anywhere in the world to participate and connect with others. 172 entrepreneurs joined the Space Academy and its workshops. Before the Space Academy, 10 selected startups each received four personalised studies on their companies from experts on business model design, intellectual property rights, and access to finance and human resources. During the event, as well as attending open workshops each startup participated in 6 intensive one-to-one consultation meetings with SpaceUp experts to review the report findings and ask questions on the following topics: business development, IPR, access to finance, HR, working with business angels and finance for innovation. Meanwhile, other participants were in workshops discussing key topics related to business, technology, investment and the European space sector. SpaceUp held a panel session at EBAN Annual Congress on “Space as an Enabler”, introducing the opportunities offered by space technologies as enabler of innovative and disruptive solutions. It was moderated by Uli Fricke, CEO of FunderNation, and Candace Johnson, President Emeritus of EBAN. The speakers included Dr. Lorenzo Scatena, Secretary General of Fondazione E. Amaldi, Guido Baraglia, Principal Business Development Manager - Satellite Solutions at Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Ebru Kanat, Divisional Business Transformation at Bosch. The final SpaceUp event will take place in the beginning of October 2021 and it is planned to be an in-person event.  OroraTech provides global wildfire detection and monitoring services. Its platform uses satellite imagery and wildfire detection algorithms to maximise its accuracy. It is already used by government agencies, insurance companies, and commercial forestry operators around the globe, helping to mitigate the environmental and economic impacts of forest fires.
The latest €5.8 million Series A funding round is led by Findus Venture and Ananda Impact Ventures, with contributions from APEX Ventures, BayernKapital, and Business Angels including Clemens Kaiser, SpaceTec Capital and Ingo Baumann. The funding will be used for the launch of OroraTech's own satellites into orbit and further development of their platform. Congratulations to the OroraTech team for this impressive achievement!  We are pleased to share the results of the selection of ten European startups working in the space industry for Space Academy Europe. The SpaceUp Evaluation Committee has carefully analysed the business models of all applicants and they have selected companies to receive customised studies and one-to-one coaching sessions with industry experts, as well as pitching at the EBAN annual congress.
The companies are: BlueLab-ELT-S http://www.lab.blue/ Ecoten (Urban Comfort) https://urban-comfort.eu/ eOdyn SeaWaze https://www.e-odyn.com/ Hercules (Prometheus Technologies) https://prometheus-technologies.space/ Hybrid Lidar Systems http://www.hybrid-lidar.com/ KERMAP https://kermap.com/ SCouP http://www.scoup.eu Unsinkable Robotics https://unsinkable.eu/ Vake https://www.vake.ai/ Zephalto https://zephalto.com/ Thank you to all who have applied and we look forward to seeing you at the open workshops. Registrations will open soon.  On 18th April 2021, the application period closed for the upcoming Space Academy Europe to take place 16th-18th June 2021.
The 43 applications will be evaluated by the SpaceUp Evaluation Committee, which will select the ten best companies in terms of company status, stage of product/service offered, scalability, technical expertise and market strategy. These 10 highest scoring companies will be those selected to receive:
Space Academy Paris, our fourth Space Academy, took place on the 8th March 2021 organised by IASP – the International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation. Due to continued travel restrictions for the Cornavirus pandemic, the Space Academy sessions were conducted through a virtual platform, which allowed companies from across the globe to take part and network with others. 337 participants (including startups, experts, and investors) from 47 countries joined the Space Academy, with 222 B2B meetings set up. Before the Space Academy, 10 selected startups each received four personalised studies on their companies from experts on business model design, intellectual property rights, and access to finance and human resources. During the event, as well as attending sessions each startup participated in 6 intensive one-to-one consultation meetings with SpaceUp experts to review the report findings and ask questions on the following topics: business development, IPR, access to finance, HR, working with business angels and finance for innovation. Meanwhile, other participants were in workshops discussing key topics related to business, technology and the European space sector. Space Academy Paris was held back-to-back with the Paris Space Week on 9th-10th March, which is an online conference bringing together actors working in the space industry, such as space agencies, organisations, startups and investors, attracting 660 visitors. As SpaceUp, we held a panel session at Paris Space Week discussing “From Space to Earth: Investing in Downstream Applications”, which was attended by more than 100 people. Four panellists discussed the potential of space technologies, the funding landscape and what trends they see emerging in the market. The panellists were Jeff Crusey from Seraphim Capital, Christian Ziach from High-Tech Gruenderfonds, Reima Linnanvirta from Finnish Business Angels Network and Lorenzo Scatena from Fondazione E. Amaldi, and Alicia Shelley from IASP as moderator. Three winners of the SpaceUp pitch competition, ConstellR, Klepsydra Technologies and PowerUp Technologies, presented their pitches and answered questions from investors during the panel session. The next Space Academy Europe will take place on 16th – 18th June. The call for applications for start-ups and entrepreneurs is currently open until the 11th of April. https://apply.space-academy.eu/calls/space-academy-europe/   Neutron Star Systems (NSS) has signed its first contract with the European Space Agency to deliver superconducting components for spacecraft. Under the agreement, the company will deliver a High-Temperature Superconductor Harness which will support the operation of advanced instrumentation for astrophysics missions. The project will be delivered in partnership with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), in Germany, and the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in Grenoble, France.
Implementing superconductors into the cabling systems reduces the need for cooling of spacecraft, improving the efficiency of their systems. The 18-month project, under a programme of and funded by the European Space Agency, was kicked-off on the 1st February and is scheduled to run until mid-August 2022. Competitors from abroad, such as New Zealand, Russia and China have all recognised the potential of superconductors in space applications, and have begun efforts to apply the technology to their space sectors. Congratulations to the team of Neutron Star Systems for this remarkable achievement! We are delighted to announce that the Evaluation Committee have evaluated the applications received and they have chosen the 10 companies to join the 4th Space Academy and who will be provided with one on one talks and personalised advice from our experts. They will receive customised services before, during and after the event, as well as pitching in front of investors.  The successful applicants are as follows:
Asvin https://asvin.io/ Bareways https://www.bareways.com/ ConsellR – HiVE https://constellr.space/ Geckos United – Fieldy https://fieldy.space/ Hawa Dawa https://hawadawa.com/ HERADO https://herado.eu/ In Quattro https://www.in-quattro.com/ Klepsydra Technologies https://klepsydra.com/ Navato Aerospace GbR https://nanonavato.com/ PowerUP Energy Technologies https://www.powerup-tech.com/ Thank you to everyone that applied and we look forward to seeing you virtually. On top of that, all entrepreneurs are invited to join the workshops on 8th March (FREE!). For more details and to register: https://spaceap.vimeet.events/en/. On 21st January 2021, the application period for Space Academy Paris closed. We are delighted to have received 31 applications from 18 countries.
All applications go through a pre-selection phase to identify the companies that fit the specified criteria of the Evaluation Committee. The pre-selection phase evaluates the company with a focus on the company’s status, their stage of product/service and their market strategy. Following the pre-selection phase, the SpaceUp Evaluation Committee will use other European data and services from the likes of Galileo, Copernicus and EGNOS, to score the applications. Selected companies begin receiving customised services prior to the Space Academy, for example studies of their company. During the event itself on 8-9th March, they will have the chance to have one-to-one sessions and receive advice from experts, in addition to the general workshops. All of this is embedded in the Paris Space Week, which will take place on 9-10th March. Participation is free for the selected companies and the three best pitches will be presented live at the event. Open workshops at the Space Academy are open to everyone to attend for free. The Space Academy Rome was held 9th – 10th December 2020, the third such event following successful Space Academies in Helsinki and Bremen in 2019. It was organised by project partners Cosorzio di Ricerca Hypatia and IASP – The International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation. The initial call for start-ups closed on the 23rd of January 2020 and 10 exemplary start-ups were selected. In the light of the Coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns all over Europe, the Space Academy scheduled for Seville was merged with the Space Academy Rome which allowed 10 additional spaces to be created for start-ups to be selected and to access personalised services provided by the SpaceUp experts, with the final call closing on the 30th of September. The Space Academy Rome took place on a digital platform which allowed companies to meet and interact with other delegates and experts alike, as well as attending workshops and webinars. The two-day event welcomed a total of 208 participants (including startups, experts, and investors) from 41 countries. During the Space Academy, the 20 selected companies were divided into two groups and each of them attended a full day of one-to-one meetings with experts on key topics such as business development, IPR, funding and more. Each of the selected companies had also previously received 4 personalised reports (business model design, intellectual property rights, access to finance and human resources). On the other day of the Space Academy companies were invited to join other space tech entrepreneurs in intensive workshops on topics such as business plan development, crowdfunding, funding schemes with ESA, Artificial Intelligence, becoming investment ready and technology transfer. The Space Academy was held back-to-back with the New Space Economy Forum on 11th-12th December, which welcomed hundreds of participants and where technical sessions focused on the potential of New Space in various sectors such as health, industry, agriculture and economy, others discussed the challenges companies face in getting funding and how to best address these, the vision for the next generation of ‘New Space’ from 6 UN regions, and the Italian space sector and the opportunities it offers. SpaceUp hosted a successful webinar embedded in the NSE forum, focusing on Finance for Space-tech Scaleups. The selected SpaceUp companies were given the chance to enter a pitch competition sponsored by E. Amaldi Foundation and the Italian Space Agency. Neutron Start Systems UG won best ScaleUp and Picosats won the prize for best StartUp. We look forward to the next Space Academy in Paris, 8th – 9th March. The call for applications for start-ups and entrepreneurs is currently open until the 7th of January. https://apply.space-academy.eu/calls/space-academy-paris/ |
