ESA announces winning startups at IAC event

ESA experts shortlisted the top ten proposals from startups registered with ESA’s Business Incubation Centres (ESA BICs) around Europe.

Presenting at ESA’s Pavilion at the IAC, the shortlisted startups pitched their business to a jury of ESA experts, ESA partners, and investors. The jury voted for their preferred startup and a runner-up from each of the two categories: Earth observation and space transportation.

ESA Director of Commercialisation, Industry and Procurement, Géraldine Naja announced the winners on Wednesday 21 September:

Earth observation
First place – SpaceSense, ESA BIC Nord France
Runner-up – Super Sharp Space Systems, ESA BIC UK

Space Transportation
First place – Magdrive, ESA BIC UK
Runner-up – The Exploration Company, ESA BIC Bavaria

The two winners are set to receive a parabolic flight ticket as well as one hour of C-level mentoring from Géraldine Naja.

For the runners-up, Super Sharp Space Systems was awarded mentoring from Planet and ESA Director of Earth Observation, Simonetta Cheli. The Exploration Company was awarded mentoring from Airbus and ESA Director of Space Transportation, Daniel Neuenschwander.

Meet the winners

SpaceSense, in France, is developing a platform that helps non-expert data scientists and geospatial engineers to build satellite imagery and artificial intelligence solutions faster, simply, and at scale. It hides the complexity linked to satellite imagery behind easy-to-use functions and makes the technology accessible to Agriculture, Environment and Infrastructure industries.

Sami Yacoubi, Co-founder & COO at SpaceSense said, “We're extremely happy. Being on the ESA booth, having the recognition of industry and winning this competition means a lot to us. We're sure that the coaching from Géraldine Naja will help us a lot to accelerate our company.' 

Jyotsna Budideti, Co-founder & CEO, added: "We want to bring satellite imagery to everyone; to help their business to use satellite data and make it easy for them to leverage this technology." Having tested their product with customers they are now looking to move to the next phase of commercialisation.

Magdrive, in the UK, is developing highly efficient electric plasma thrusters for satellites and spacecraft, with over twenty times the thrust of existing electric thrusters. The combination of high thrust and high efficiency at low mass will enable the increasing number of avoidance manoeuvres in low Earth orbit and enable deorbiting without affecting a satellite's lifetime. This will also enable entirely new business models in orbital servicing, orbital manufacturing, and large-scale constellation management based on new capabilities in agility and manoeuvrability.

Mark Stokes, CEO and co-founder at Magdrive, registered with ESA BIC UK, commented, “ESA is a really excellent source of early funding, of expertise and then, as the startup grows, events like this become available. This grows a network which starts at the BIC which is very local, but grows internationally the more you access it and really introduces you to key players in the industry, which is hard to come by working by yourself.”

Accelerating the path to market

The IAC brings the space community together to share ideas, network and forge partnerships. This year, the IAC welcomed 8800 visitors from 130 countries – the perfect arena for ESA to boost the chances of these ten startup companies.

Commercialisation is one of ESA’s top priorities. ESA’s goal with this competition is to accelerate the path to market for promising startups. This stimulates the European space economy by boosting disruptive innovation in emerging commercial space domains. This is one of the goals described in ESA’s Agenda 2025.

ESA will propose new programmes at ESA’s Council Meeting at Ministerial Level (CM22) in November to extend the ways in which ESA can help startups to grow and succeed.

“This competition highlights the dynamism, talent and innovation potential of the start-ups incubated in ESA’s Business Incubation Centres around Europe. We look forward to further supporting these winning startups through mentorship and through our future ScaleUp programme,” added Géraldine Naja.

Coming up on 28–29 September is ESA’s industry Space Days event at ESA’s Technical Centre in the Netherlands. This is an opportunity for industry and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to showcase their expertise, products and services and establish new business contacts.