Eva Berneke of Eutelsat Communications
Karista and Eutelsat Communications have announced a new partnership which will see Eutelsat become a new subscriber to the venture capital (VC) firm’s Spacetech fund. This will add to Karista’s ability to fully harness momentum that is building up in the space economy.
For Eutelsat, the new partnership consolidates its existing close ties with the start-ups and plays a key role in the development of a vibrant space ecosystem featuring in space technology in France and across Europe. With the addition of satellite operator, satcom players are increasingly turning their attention to the far-reaching changes taking place in this ecosystem and witnessing the emergence of a new space economy featuring a host of new applications.
Since September 2021, Karista’s Spacetech fund has backed young French and European companies involved in the Spacetech revolution, with seed/series an investments ranging between €1 million and €5 million. Karista’s preferred target is high-potential start-ups involved in designing new infrastructures on the ground and in orbit, and leveraging the massive surge in available data to build new solutions for various economic sectors and industries. Karista’s team of dedicated investors backs businesses in all areas of the economy, with a special focus on sovereignty and sustainability (insurance, finance, agriculture, energy, transport, environment, telecommunications, security, etc.).
In just two years, Karista has rolled out the fund, investing in seven Spacetech companies:
- Miratlas (May 2022): Offers solutions to ensure continuous and secure optical links between Earth and Space.
Leanspace (June 2022): Ground segment “platform-as-a-service” for digitising the lifecycle of space missions via the cloud. - Cysec (October 2022): A provider of confidential computing solutions to secure applications containing highly sensitive data in areas such as space, critical infrastructure, edge applications, healthcare and defence.
- Heex Technologies (November 2022): Platform for managing data in embedded systems in real time, enabling the transition from Big Data to Smart Data.
- Bfore.Ai (November 2022): A developer of predictive cybersecurity solutions, identifying cyberattacks before they occur, using AI technology and behavioral analysis.
- Look Up Space (June 2023): Develops a global, radar-based solution for permanent, real-time, reliable space surveillance and provides space security data and services.
- ConstellR (July 2023): ConstellR’s proprietary space infrastructure paves the way for precise physical measurement of the Earth’s resources to assess vegetation and soil health.
Karista’s positioning as a venture capital investor in space technology won over a number of institutional investors, as well as the French space agency Centre National D’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), one of the fund’s sponsors, and a number of industrial players in the field or in space-related industries. With the new partnership, Eutelsat has opted for a Spacetech fund, thereby adding a pivotal dimension to satellite operations, as well as a unique vision of space infrastructure capabilities supporting telecom services. As a pioneer in space, one of the hallmarks of Eutelsat’s DNA is to continue to innovate by building partnerships and synergies with all stakeholders in the sector.
With its fleet of geostationary satellites, Eutelsat has shown itself over the last forty years to be a forerunner in its technological choices for delivering new services and offers in video broadcasting, data transmission, government services and fixed and mobile connectivity to broadcasters, telecoms operators and end-users, from private consumers to businesses. Concurrently, Eutelsat has developed close ties with innovative start-ups across the satellite sector, building alliances, partnerships and synergies with many of them. Eutelsat has taken this culture of one step further by announcing its planned combination with OneWeb, a pioneering constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites, to form a unique hybrid Geostationary Equatorial Orbit (GEO) / LEO offering.
The new partnership consolidates Eutelsat’s status in the space sector.
Eva Berneke, CEO of Eutelsat Communications, says “We are thrilled to contribute to the growth of a number of French and European start-ups that are delivering innovative solutions and services in the space industry. Our partnership with Karista’s Spacetech fund further cements Eutelsat’s close ties with NewSpace start-ups and, more importantly, enables ambitious innovative projects to come to fruition and take shape. Ultimately, the entire European space ecosystem will gain from this vibrant, forward-looking momentum.”
“It is with great pride that our investment team welcomes Eutelsat as a new investor in the Spacetech fund. This new partnership confirms the growing interest of the world’s leading satcom players in a fast- expanding, rapidly changing market with potential growth drivers for industry. It is also a token of recognition for our team, whose day-to-day efforts are focused on creating and sharing performance in a unique segment of the market that is experiencing rapid technological evolution”, Olivier Dubuisson, chairman of Karista, comments.
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