SpaceFounders Startups Move Forward into Boost Phase

TOULOUSE, France (CNES PR) — After meeting in Munich in early September, SpaceFounders, CNES ‘100% space-based Franco-German acceleration program, moved to Toulouse, from October 11 to 15, for a week of intensive work with the 10 winning European startups. The program entered its “Boost” phase, which aims to accelerate each startup, in particular by establishing relationships with customers, partners, suppliers and key resources from European aeronautics and space capitals.

Soon, the winning startups will enter the third phase of the program, that of seeking funding, in particular through the organization of Demo Days. The Paris Demo Day will take place on November 25 at the Hôtel de la Marine and will be organized in two stages. Privileged meetings with investors, partners or large institutional clients will be followed by a sequence on CNES’s commitment to support the European ecosystem of space startups to face space giants and startups from the United States and from Asia.

As a reminder, the SpaceFounders program, ultra-intensive and ultra-high quality, takes place over ten weeks. The selected startups benefit from the powerful network and infrastructure of CNES as well as those of the University of the Bundeswehr Munich. They also benefit from the support of exclusive partners such as the ESA (European Space Agency) and the DLR (German Aerospace Center). SpaceFounders relies on a unique community of more than a hundred mentors who are among the very first players in the European space and digital ecosystem. Thanks to these, start-ups benefit from personalized support in technical, business and financial fields.

During this Toulouse stage, CNES and the University of the Bundeswehr in Munich formalized their cooperation during a meeting between Philippe Baptiste, President of CNES, and Merith Niehuss, President of the University of the Bundeswehr.

The 10 winning startups of the SpaceFounders program:

• DCubeD provides deployable structures for nanosatellites;
• Infinite Orbits offers in-orbit services to satellite operators in order to optimize their fleets and increase the life of the satellites;
• Interstellar Lab tackles sustainable agriculture for the earth with controlled environment modules, of which it aims to install space versions on the Moon and Mars;
• Mission Space, with its fleet of nanosatellites, is developing a global forecasting and monitoring system for one of the world’s highest priority natural hazards – space weather;
• OKAPI.Orbits offers an AI-optimized spatial traffic management platform to enable the operation and control of assets in space;
• Pangea Aerospace develops high efficiency propulsion systems and reusable launchers;
• Share My Space tackles the problem of space debris by offering products and services with high added value for space security;
• Village Data Analytics offers indicators from geospatial images for the benefit of isolated villages;
• VorteX.io, notably through the transfer of space technology, provides hydrology measurements for the prevention of floods thanks to a hybridization of GSM / IoT space connectivity;
• Zephalto takes its passengers in a balloon into the stratosphere for a cruise with a view of the Earth.