Promus Ventures Closes $140M Space Fund
Seven Investments into US, EU and UK Startups Already Closed from Fund; Also Launching New Promus Ventures Space Index
Now in our tenth year, Promus Ventures has had the privilege of investing in some of the world’s leading deep tech startups. We back ambitious deep-tech entreprenuers leveraging tranformation technologies (automation, connectivity, advanced production) to digitalize large, mature industries (manufacturing, space, built environment, mobility, health/bio). Today we are excited to announce our fifth venture capital fund, and our first sector specific fund, a new $140M fund specifically focused on backing early-stage space and geospatial teams around the globe.
This new space fund (Orbital Ventures) will sit alongside our four other Promus Ventures deep tech funds. Nothing will change in our existing deep-tech investing strategy, as we will continue to make our usual early-stage investments from these funds into such portfolio companies as Whoop, Bellabeat, Kensho, AngelList, Cobalt Robotics, Behavox, Gauss Surgical, Halter, Figure Eight, Safehub and others.
From our offices in Chicago, San Francisco and Luxembourg, we are proud to have now made over 85 early-stage investments in the US, Europe, UK, and New Zealand. We are grateful for the support of our LPs for this new fund, and together believe that there are a myriad of new opportunities still ahead in the space sector.
“You Will Never Make Money Investing in Space”
We have been fortunate to have a front row seat to the growth of the New Space startup ecosystem since our first space investment in 2014. We have backed many of the new breed of leading space and geospatial startups, including Rocket Lab (Nasdaq: RKLB), Spire Global (NYSE: SPIR), ICEYE, Mapbox, Isotropic Systems, Swift Navigation, Aurora, Enview, Ellipsis and others. Our new fund will benefit from our experience investing up and down the space stack, including launch, constellations, and application layer data companies.
Back in 2018, we published our thesis on investing in the New Space stack titled “New Space Investing Taking Off.” Much of this continues to be the cornerstone of our investing in this sector, and it has been fun to watch our early investments continue to rapidly grow and expand their reach. We have written posts on a myriad of topics regarding space that can be found on our “Go Build” blog. Our team has already made seven new investments from the new fund into startups located in the US, UK, Germany, France and Netherlands.
It is worth noting that when we started investing in space we were routinely told that our space investments would never work, these teams would require too much capital and their models were too difficult to execute. Why would any early-stage venture capital firm invest in such capital-intensive sectors as space? We have been lucky to invest with incredible teams that found a way past these critiques from the cheap seats to build such terrific companies today. Some of them, such as Rocket Lab and Spire, have even started trading as public companies last month.
Also Announcing The Promus Ventures Space Index
We are also excited to announce our new Promus Ventures Space Index that daily tracks the market multiples, metrics and share price performance of currently 26 public companies that we view as the leaders in both new and legacy space. This new site also covers all the new space SPACs that are in waiting to deSPAC and their market multiples and metrics. Today there are ten such companies in this list. Once these companies deSPAC we will then fold them into the index.
Our goal with the cap-weighted Space Index is to track in real-time how these public companies rank among each other in revenue growth and other metrics, as well as how each of them and as a whole perform versus the greater market. We segment this index into “New Space” and “Legacy” groups, and track how these two segments trade against each other as well as versus the S&P and Nasdaq.
We look forward to continuing to build out more insights into the future, and more closely track how the New Space sector grows and develops. For those interested in signing up to receive these insights every two weeks, please sign up here or on the index website.
Ad Astra!
Lastly, it is a blessing to work with such an incredible (and fun) Promus Ventures team, now ten professionals strong across our offices. We are strategically placed around the globe to further strengthen our network and deal flow, and believe this global presence and network is a unique strength that many deep tech founders are looking for in an investment partner. While working across numerous time zones requires many early mornings and late nights, there is always an “Open” sign illuminating our front door if someone wants to find us.
We aim to continue to be in the center of the deep tech frontier and look forward to hearing from any early-stage deep tech team with a grand vision and insatiable appetite to turn bold ideas into reality!
Promus Ventures invests in early-stage deep tech startups solving complex problems to advance everyday lives across the world.
Recipients of this post are not to construe it as investment, legal, or tax advice, and it is not intended to provide the basis for any evaluation of an investment in any fund. Prospective investors should consult with their own legal, investment, tax, accounting, and other advisors to determine the potential benefits, burdens, and risks associated with making an investment in any fund.
Promus Ventures is a trademark of Promus Holdings, LLC. Used under license.
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