The European space industry gets more attention from the European Commission, which has increased its investments under InnovFin.
At the Last European Space Conference, the European Investment Fund (EIF) announced together with the European Commission (EC) their support for innovation and growth in the space sector with a top up investment of €100m. The EIF has now announced two of the expected three investments that will deploy these €100m, which is implemented under Horizon 2020 InnovFin Space Equity Pilot. The first two investments are going to Orbital Ventures SCA SICAV-RAIF and Primo Space, two space focused funds. The third one will be published by the end of March. The European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), which is the main pillar of the Investment Plan of Europe backs up all the investments. The EU investment of €100m will bolster outside coinvestment in these three funds for a total funding of €300m for the space sector.
The Orbital Ventures is an early stage fund, based in Luxembourg, which is specialised in space technology, both downstream (cryptography, data storage, earth observation) and upstream (space hardware, rockets, satellites). The other space fund, Primo Space, invests in proof-of-concept, seed, and early stage projects or firms. The Italian-based technology transfer fund intends to foster commercialisation of ground-breaking innovation in the European space sector. Primo Space is the first fully space-oriented fund in Europe and the first Italian fund, in which the Italian Innovation Agency is an active stakeholder. The EIF selected Primo Space under the first pilot and is now increasing its engagement.
Since the InnovFin Space Equity Pilot is still implemented under Horizon 2020, Swiss entities are eligible to both space funds until the transition to the new Horizon Europe Programme. Most of these financial instruments involving support to financial intermediaries like Venture Capital funds, in the future be managed by InvestEU, an investment programme that is separate from Horizon Europe. Switzerland is not expected to associate to InvestEU.