Start-ups prepare to accelerate business

The recent three-day intensive ESA Investment Readiness Programme workshop helped companies from the Agency’s business incubation centres and other early-stage start-ups using space technology in non-space fields to increase their chances of seed-level and venture capital funding.

ESA’s Technology Transfer Programme Office (TTPO) selected the 11 start-ups, which all have strong business potential with the right funding.

“We wanted to ‘dress up’ the entrepreneurs to be successful when meeting with investors,” explained Gabrio Boerci from ESA’s TTPO.

“Entrepreneurs are often technical guys with great ideas on how to spin-off advanced and often unique technologies from our European space programmes to great technical solutions for non-space applications.”

The entrepreneurs were guided by experienced coaches to tailor their investor presentations and business models, and to emphasise their unique selling propositions and business perspectives.

“Almost all good business ideas will need capital at some point,” explained coach and serial entrepreneur Rick Salmon from Xelerator AS, Norway.

“It’s like fertilisers for plants. Without capital, growth takes longer. With capital, a company can often move quicker.

“My goal has also been to teach them to become ‘serial entrepreneurs’ – persons who not only startup one company, but who are capable of starting many healthy businesses throughout their careers.

“Serial entrepreneurs must learn how to raise capital or to obtain the resources necessary for success with a good business idea.”

Workshop participant entrepreneur Kim Partington from UK start-up company EarthImages confirmed that, “this workshop was critical in turning around my perception of my business from that of an engineer to that of an investor, and hence helped me to be able to consider what needs to be strengthened in order to gain capital investment.”

ESA Investment Forum at Harwell

Thirty start-ups, including the 11from the readiness workshop, will meet potential investors at the sixth ESA Investment Forum on 2 November at the UK’s Harwell Oxford Science Park.

Harwell is a focal point of the UK’s rapidly growing high-tech space community and the location of both ESA’s new establishment and its fifth business incubation centre.

Organised by Europe Unlimited and hosted jointly by ESA and the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council, the forum is an exclusive opportunity for the start-up companies to present their businesses and discuss the potential with representatives from the finance and investment community as well as key industry players.

Expert reviewers with over 20 professional venture capital (VC) investors and ‘business angels’ – wealthy, entrepreneurial individuals who provide capital in return for a proportion of a company’s equity – and corporate industry advisors will meet the start-ups and evaluate their business potential and investment opportunities.

“We have setup the ESA Investment Forum to help start-ups using our space technologies to create new European business in non-space fields,” explains Frank M. Salzgeber, Head of ESA’s TTPO.

“Meeting up with many VCs and business angels at our efficient investment forum gives them the opportunity to meet many investors at the same time, and a good opportunity to get hold of the needed capital to get their companies going.

VC investor Dr Bernd Geiger of Triangle Venture Capital Group Management says, “We are looking for really compelling ideas or very forceful technologies which could be turned into a groundbreaking application – something which is really brand new and which has a big market potential.”

Triangle also manages the Open Sky Technologies Fund initiated by ESA to support space-to-non-space spin-offs.

“We have long experience in raising companies from zero to an initial €5–10 million, and in a next step up to €50 million and beyond, annual revenue and this is what we are going to repeat with the ESA Open Sky Technology Fund.”

The expert reviewers will evaluate the start-ups and select the best six, who will have the opportunity to participate in the European Venture Summit in Düsseldorf, 6–7 December.

Recent use of satellite services and space technologies by commercial non-space applications has generated countless business opportunities. Satnav and Earth observation applications are becoming some of the most promising sectors of business profit today.

The ESA Investment Forum will be preceded by a one-day Venture Academy that prepares entrepreneurs meet to investors’ expectations and to pitch their business ideas.

After Harwell, the next ESA Investment Forum will take place in Toulouse in autumn 2012.

ESA’s Business Incubation Centres

In 2003, ESA decided to set up the BICs as part of its technology transfer programme, with the intention of helping entrepreneurs and young companies to use space technologies and knowhow in innovative new products and services in non-space fields.

Successful BICs have already been established in the Netherlands (Noordwijk), Italy (Frascati), Germany (Darmstadt and Oberpfaffenhofen) and the UK (Harwell). Being near major space sitesensures that specialist advice and consultancy is never far away: ESTEC at Noordwijk, ESOC at Darmstadt, ESRIN at Frascati, DLR institutes at Oberpfaffenhofen and the Harwell Oxford science parks in Oxfordshire.

A sixth BIC is in the planning for the Belgian Wallonia region, to be launched soon.

ESA’s Technology Transfer Programme Office (TTPO)

The TTPO’s main mission is to facilitate the use of space technology and space systems for non-space applications and to demonstrate the benefit of the European space programme to European citizens.

The office is responsible for defining the overall approach and strategy for the transfer of space technologies, including the incubation of start-up companies and their funding. For more information, please contact:

ESA’s Technology Transfer Programme Office
European Space Agency
Keplerlaan 1
2200 AG, Noordwijk
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 71 565 6208
Email: ttp@esa.int