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E2MC Update On Space Financing Rounds In May 2020

Photo by NASA on Unsplash.

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.

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