ESA and Tikehau Ace Capital, represented by ESA DG Josef Aschbacher and Marwan Lahoud, Executive Chairman and Managing Director of Tikehau Ace Capital, joined forces on 30th June 2022 at the Capacity Building Workshop in Paris to sign a collaboration agreement.
As part of this document, Tikehau Ace will support ESA in hackathon and competition juries and selection or evaluation boards, while ESA will provide technical and scientific advisory to Tikehau Ace regarding specific subjects. Together, they will also work on the identification of high potential space companies. Furthermore, the agreement includes an elaboration of a joint strategy to develop efficient matchmaking between space business opportunities and the financial and investor community.
Tikehau Ace Capital is a subsidiary of Tikehau Capital with €1.3 bn Asset under Management (AUM) and 20 investment professionals. It operates in two core sectors: Strategic Industries (aerospace, defence) and Technologies (cybersecurity, digital trust) focus. They already have long-term relationships with key industrial groups, such as Airbus, Safran, Dassault, Thales, EDF, Naval Group and Sopra Steria.
ESA is promoting these collaboration agreements with the aim of bringing the investor community closer to the space sector. The Capacity Building Programme for Fund Managers, a series of workshops designed to develop the skills and investment methodology of private investment funds who want to focus their activities on various space market segments and organised jointly with the European Commission, the European Investment Fund (EIF) and the European Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA), is working in that direction.
