Abstract
In recent years, the space sector has seen an increasing number of commercial actors leveraging private and public funding to initiate innovative businesses addressing the market with new solutions. European institutions, namely the European Commission through its “Space Strategy for Europe,” and the European Space Agency through its Resolution “Towards Space 4.0 for a United Space in Europe,” expressed their commitment to foster entrepreneurship, stimulate new business opportunities, and boost investment as part of their objective to support a globally competitive and innovative European space sector. To facilitate the emergence of a dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystem backed by investors for the benefit of both public and private European stakeholders, it is essential that the different actors involved share a common understanding of the state of affairs based on tangible indicators. Although this issue has been thoroughly investigated in the United States, assessments from a European perspective have so far been limited. In an attempt to fill this gap, the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) conducted a study with the objective to collect and consolidate relevant data and information to (1) evaluate private investment in European space start-ups and (2) examine entrepreneurship trends in the European space sector in comparison to trends observed in other sectors. This article describes the methodology and the results of this study.
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