By Raphael Roettgen
With almost US$550 million of announced space-related financing rounds, May has turned out to be the top space fundraising month so far in 2020. SpaceX, besides launching astronauts to the ISS on Crew Dragon, came in with over US$346 million by itself. The total amount does not yet include an announced Series E by Japanese space debris clean-up company Astroscale, for which it has already secured the first investor – the Japanese datacenter operator I-NET.
It is probably a safe bet that most, if not all, of the announced rounds may have been in negotiations since pre-COVID times. However, anecdotally, through our day-to-day work we start seeing more and more investors willing to restart discussions and look at new opportunities.
Beyond investments, we have also continued to see activity on the M&A front (e.g. Amergint acquiring Tethers Unlimited, Electro Optic Systems completing its acquisition of Audacy) as well as, unfortunately, with regard to Chapter 11 filings (e.g. Intelsat).
| Company | US$m | Country | Subsector | Investors |
| SpaceX | 346.2 | U.S. | diversified (launch, satcom) | N/A
|
| Ligado Networks | 100.0 | U.S. | Satcom (IoT) | N/A
|
| Commsat | 38.1 | China | diversified (satellites, satcom) | Beijing Wealth, AVIC Capital
|
| Andøya Spaceport
|
37.6 | Norway | spaceport | Norway
|
| Enview | 12.0 | U.S. | remote sensing – data analysis | BrightCap Ventures, Statkraft Ventures, Ahoy Capital, Crosslink Capital, Toivo Annus
|
| Vesta Space Technology | 10.0 | India | Satellites | Next Capital
|
| Xona Space | 1.0 | U.S. | GNSS | 1517 Fund, Seraphim Capital, Stellar Solutions, Inc., Trucks Venture Capital
|
| OroraTech | 0.9 | Germany | remote sensing | Clemens Kaiser, ConActivity KG, Ingo Baumann, SpaceTec Capital
|
| Agile Space | N/A | U.S. | satellite propulsion | CORI Innovation Fund
|
| Core Semiconductor | N/A | Singapore | satcom (chips) | SpaceChain Foundation
|
| Earth Observant | N/A | U.S. | remote sensing | N/A
|
| Smallspark Space | N/A | U.K. | launch | (Grants by) Research England, European Regional Dev. Fund, Space Research and Innovation Network for Technology (SPRINT)
|
Raphael Roettgen provides financial advice to and invests proprietary capital in space companies as a managing director and founder of E2MC. He also advises institutional investors and governments on space. Previously, Raphael has held senior roles at global investment banks and hedge funds and was also a fintech entrepreneur in Brazil. He holds degrees in finance from Wharton, machine learning from PUC-Rio and space studies from the International Space University, as well as the CFA and FRM charters.
