NordSpace Ventures will fund startups that can support its parent company's satellite launch activities and boost Canada's spacetech ecosystem.
Canada-based NordSpace has become the first space launch services startup to start a corporate venture capital arm, unveiling its NordSpace Ventures unit together with its debut investment.
Founded in 2022 with the aim to make Canada a power in space exploration, NordSpace has developed its own orbital launch vehicle and satellites, and plans to begin launching them from the country’s first spaceport, which it also operates.
NordSpace Ventures is intended to expand Canada’s space tech ecosystem by funding local startups with a strategic fit, with the ultimate aim of ‘launching Canadian payloads on Canadian rockets from Canadian soil’.
“For too long, Canada’s most promising space and defence companies have had to look outside our borders for capital, customers, and credibility,” said NordSpace founder and CEO Rahul Goel, in a release.
“NordSpace Ventures changes that equation. We are putting Canadian capital to work in Canadian companies building critical capabilities for our national security and economic future. This is about more than financial returns. It is about ensuring that the technologies Canada needs for true sovereignty are developed, owned and scaled here at home.”
Its first portfolio company is Wyvern, a developer of unfolding camera technology designed to make high-resolution hyperspectral imagery from satellites more affordable. The company also maintains its own satellite constellation. NordSpace is the first corporate investor it has disclosed since it was founded in 2018.
Existing satellite producers and operators such as Eutelsat and SES have made sporadic venture investments, and space is a strategic area for diversified groups such as NTT Docomo or Telstra, but the launch of NordSpace Ventures represents the first CVC fund to be formed by a space technology startup.
In addition to getting financial backing, portfolio companies will be able to benefit from the manufacturing and testing facilities at NordSpace’s laboratories, as well as launch services and a partnership network that spans Canadian and allied government and defence institutions.
