Discover the challenges of building a NewSpace company in Europe with insights from Kammy Brun, the Managing Director of Simera Sense and Founder of Kalaxie. With over 15 years of experience in the industry, Kammy has plenty of advice for other founders and entrepreneurs in the sector, which she shared on Episode 53 of The Satellite & NewSpace Matters Podcast. Here are some of the highlights of our conversation.
What do you think a startup needs to be successful within the European NewSpace sector?
In Europe, startups are encouraged by the very healthy financing environment. However, sometimes we can easily get funding, but we don’t have customers, which is dangerous for any company. We really need to pay attention to that. From a global point of view, the tricky things about getting from startup to scale-up are the market expectation of your product, how you manage your cash flow, and how you get your funding.
When it comes to market expectations, as a startup, you can launch a product before you’ve found your product or market fit. The early adopter of your product won’t expect you to be perfect because you’re a startup. You’re still figuring things out. However, when you become a scale-up, you need to have a good product/market fit, and you need to know exactly what you’re selling.
Simera is a very good example. The company was launched six or seven years ago, and we have already delivered more than 60 optical payloads, around 20 of which are now in orbit. Our portal is a standardised, commercial, off-the-shelf optical payload that didn’t exist in the market before. The challenge for Simera Sense, and for all startups, is ensuring that the quality of your product can meet the expectations of your customers before you start to grow.
How you manage your cash flow will dictate how fast you can scale. How can you scale up your productions? You need to better manage your supply chain. You need to manage your stock, get better control of your lead time, or buy parts in advance. You may need to invest in your production line or human resource team. Everything is financial.
That leads me to fundraising. Fundraising in the US and Europe have different mindsets. They take much more risk in America, and the financing does not come from the same background as in Europe. In Europe, you can sell the idea to get fundraising. When you prove the idea, you prove the business, and you prove your technology works, you are viable. Europe has a very healthy ecosystem that includes private venture capitalists and institutional funding. That helps European startups to scale up.
Do you think the new space industry in Europe is too saturated, or do you think there is room for new players?
Well, I do believe that it’s true. There are a lot of European startups in all the different areas of NewSpace. I won’t say that it’s saturated because it’s good to have different options and market offerings that drive competition. If we come back to the user’s point of view, sometimes it’s good for them to have more choices. I won’t say that we’re democratising space today because we’re not yet there, but I do believe that we could have some market consolidation soon. It could come in the form of a partnership between different operators. If we think about the users, they do not have democratised offers that they can reach. I do believe that in the future, more partnerships will take place because there is a market need for independent technical offerings.
To hear more from Kammy, tune into Episode 53 of The Satellite & NewSpace Matters Podcast here.
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