On May 12, 2022 ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher with the presence of Geraldine Naja, Director of Commercialisation, Industry and Procurement at ESA, Charles Beigbeder, CEO and founding partner at AUDACIA, and François Chopard, CEO and founder of Starburst Aerospace, signed a collaboration agreement with the Expansion investment fund.
This is part of the several partnerships and network of investors that the ESA Commercialisation department builds and structures at corporate level to support programmes in a transversal manner and act as a strong coordinator of the activities.
Audacia is an independent management company founded in 2006 that has invested nearly €750 million structuring innovative investment solutions in private equity, real estate and venture capital for individual and institutional investors and providing access to value-added and resilient assets. Audacia would like to stimulate the emergence of European Technological and industrial start-ups and created two deep tech venture funds:
1. Quantonation, dedicated to investments in quantum technologies
2. Geodesic, dedicated to investments in New Space
The Expansion fund will also benefit from a unique DNA, thanks to its team composed by people of the Startburst Accelerator (Blast) and Geodesic Venture Fund in support to Aerospace and Defence start-ups. As with the other management funds from its network, this collaboration will help both parties in exchanging knowledge and opportunities for the benefit of the ecosystem.
