Space Academy Europe virtually unites Space Tech Entrepreneurs from across Europe

Space Academy Europe, our fifth Space Academy, took place on the 16-18^th June 2021 organised by EBAN – European Business Angel Network. The Space Academy was fully embedded into the EBAN 2021 Annual Congress, and entrepreneurs had the opportunity to attend sessions on topics of investment as well as the SpaceUp workshops. The EBAN Annual Congress is one of Europe’s largest international private investment and entrepreneurship events, bringing together early stage investors; business angels; VCs; entrepreneurs; accelerators; corporates and startups.

As a result of travel restrictions due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the Space Academy and the EBAN Annual Congress were delivered through a virtual platform, which allowed companies from anywhere in the world to participate and connect with others. 172 entrepreneurs joined the Space Academy and its workshops. Before the Space Academy, 10 selected startups each received four personalised studies on their companies from experts on business model design, intellectual property rights, and access to finance and human resources. During the event, as well as attending open workshops each startup participated in 6 intensive one-to-one consultation meetings with SpaceUp experts to review the report findings and ask questions on the following topics: business development, IPR, access to finance, HR, working with business angels and finance for innovation. Meanwhile, other participants were in workshops discussing key topics related to business, technology, investment and the European space sector.

SpaceUp held a panel session at EBAN Annual Congress on “Space as an Enabler”, introducing the opportunities offered by space technologies as enabler of innovative and disruptive solutions. It was moderated by Uli Fricke, CEO of FunderNation, and Candace Johnson, President Emeritus of EBAN. The speakers included Dr. Lorenzo Scatena, Secretary General of Fondazione E. Amaldi, Guido Baraglia, Principal Business Development Manager – Satellite Solutions at Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Ebru Kanat, Divisional Business Transformation at Bosch.

The final SpaceUp event will take place in the beginning of October 2021 and it is planned to be an in-person event. Any updates will be announced on our website: https://www.space-academy.eu/