Alpine Space Ventures, an industry player-led venture capital firm focused on early stage investments in the fast-growing European space sector, today announced the final close of its maiden fund totaling €170 million.
The fund is primarily targeting Series A rounds and will invest in startups that contribute to or leverage the global space industry to build an initial position, with a particular focus on hardware and software solutions for the industrialization of the space sector and connectivity and data. Alpine Space Ventures will focus on investing in the European ecosystem, but also have the geographic flexibility to invest in the US and elsewhere, leveraging the team’s industry relationships, notably with SpaceX’s early leadership team. A concentrated portfolio of 10-15 carefully selected investment targets will receive up to €5 million initially, reserving significant dry powder for follow-on rounds.
Fund established by industry players
Alpine Space Ventures’ investment team has over 50 years of experience building products, teams and companies while shaping the NewSpace industry. Founding Partner Bulent Altan was an early leader at SpaceX, joining Elon Musk’s team in 2004 to oversee avionics development for the Falcon 1, Falcon 9 and Dragon capsules, and later the development of the first Starlink satellites before leaving the company in 2017. Founding Partner Joram Voelklein has been successfully investing in technology since 2015, making an angel investment with Bulent in launch company Isar Aerospace, becoming one of the early backers of the European space tech ecosystem.
This expertise is further complemented by Alpine Space Ventures’ investor base, which is comprised of many entrepreneurs and space industry pioneers, including more than 20 early SpaceX employees.
Other investors in the fund include the European Investment Fund (EIF), the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF) and several prominent family offices.
Concentrated Portfolio
The fund, which aims to invest in an exclusive group of up to 15 select startups offering key space-related capabilities, has added five companies to its concentrated portfolio so far.
K2 Spaceis a satellite manufacturer that produces extremely high performance, cost-effective mega-class satellites for the mass production era.
Reflex AerospaceLeverage highly modular satellite buses to build payload-centric, scalable spacecraft in a fraction of the time previously possible.
Morpheus Spaceprovides electric thrusters and software solutions that bring mobility in space to satellite operators.
Source Energy, An off-the-shelf manufacturer of spacecraft solar panels has shortened delivery times for flight-proven power systems from years to weeks.
Black Waveis a manufacturer of carbon fiber reinforced pressure tanks for launch vehicles and satellite systems.
“We look forward to leveraging the Fund’s capital to continue supporting talented entrepreneurs in the industry.” Said Bulent Altan, Founding Partner of Alpine Space Ventures.First and foremost, we are investing in the best teams that deeply understand the market, are customer-centric and rapidly iterate on technology solutions with the aim of building the best commercial solutions possible.”
Karan Kunjur, CEO and Co-Founder of portfolio company K2 Space Commented, “We are the newest company to join the Alpine Space Ventures portfolio and have already benefited from their backing beyond our financial commitment. Bulent is a great addition to our board and we are excited to have Alpine Space Ventures on our capital table.”
“Today is a great day for the ecosystem and beyond, as we now have access to a lot of smart money to scale space-enabled solutions globally and across the industry. The European space ecosystem is still in its infancy and I can’t think of a better time to inject some further momentum into it.”Added Yoram Volklein, founding partner of Alpine Space Ventures.
“From day one, Alpine Space Ventures convinced us with their deep knowledge and industry experience.”Added Walter Ballheimer, CEO and co-founder of portfolio company Reflex Aerospace.Their technical expertise, understanding of market trends and networks are beyond anything we have seen in the industry to date.”
The announcement of the closure of the €170 million initial stage fund comes at a pivotal time for Europe to establish a commercial space industry and strengthen its civil and defense infrastructure in response to a worsening climate and geopolitical environment. The final close of the fund follows previous announcements, including a groundbreaking investment of €60 million from the European Investment Fund (EIF) in 2023 and a €10 million investment from the NATO Innovation Fund earlier this year.
