Primo Space Fund and ESA Φ-Lab sign an agreement to boost new space economy

08 lug 2021 Primo Space Fund

Primo Space and the European Space Agency (ESA), an intergovernmental organisation that counts 22 Member States whose mission is to develop European space capabilities, have signed an agreement with the aim of joining efforts to support the growth of start-ups in the Earth observation Space Economy commercial sector. The collaboration will be coordinated with the Φ-lab, a division of ESA with a specific focus on fostering transformative innovation and its commercialization in the Earth observation segment.

The ESA Φ-lab also runs the commercial programme called Investing in Industrial Innovation or InCubed, which is a 100+ M€ co-funding programme that focuses on developing innovative and commercially viable products and services exploiting the value of Earth observation imagery and dataset assets.

The activities of this collaboration between Primo Space and ESA Φ-lab range from exchanging information, organising events, highlighting common investment opportunities, to providing joint support to project activities partners, and in general de- risking entrepreneur efforts and so increasing their success rate for both ESA InCubed and Primo Space Fund.

New Space is an extraordinarily dynamic sector of the space economy that is attracting the attention not only of industry players but also of the investment community worldwide. Decision-makers worldwide are also increasing their attention to it. This is also happening because its effects can pervade almost every segment of economic activities and to some extent even everyday life.

"We believe that, in addition to making investments capable of creating value, which remains the primary objective of our activity, it is also important to contribute to the formation of a cohesive and determined ecosystem that favours the development of start-ups that create great innovations. This agreement goes exactly in that direction", said the General Partners of Primo Space Fund - Matteo Cascinari, Raffaele Mauro and Giorgio Minola.

Giuseppe Borghi, Head of ESA Φ-lab Division also commented: “The partnership with Primo Space Fund is a key step for us at ESA Φ-lab to support our commercial programme InCubed, which sees already 29 investments made in just 3.5 years (4 concluded and 3 already generating revenue) opening to Earth observation commercial entrepreneurs a privileged access to the private investors world to support their growth driven by disruptive innovation. Primo Space acts mainly in Italy, which is an InCubed key contributing country and we expect there a strong impact from this partnership."

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