Space Academy Europe Virtually Unites Space Tech Entrepreneurs from Across Europe

Space Academy Europe, our fifth Space Academy, took place on the 16-18th June 2021 organized 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 personalized 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

Let us come down from Bubble Gum land and take a proper look at how things are really done in Europe when raising early-stage equity. I am regularly astounded by young startups who contact us 5EIT Health Investor Network) for their fundraising and when asked what their timeline to closing is, they answer without doubt or humour ‘’at the end of the month”. Dilutive funding doesn’t come easy. The process is tedious, long, and more often than not, you will find investors that have more reason to say no than yes. So get ready for a challenging process that can take anywhere from 3 to 12 months.

Know your 5 Ws & H

If you can summarize all your attributes & goals and demonstrate your added value, market fit and efficacy data, all in a compelling presentation with clear financials than you are set for the next step. It all comes down to knowing your 5 Ws : who, what, when where, why and how and dressing it so investors will appreciate you speaking their language : Exits, ROI , valuation etc.

Do your homework

If you are an early-stage start-up raising dilutive funding, you may have to contact Angels Groups, family offices, early-stage venture funds or even corporate venture funds in your own country and most probably beyond borders.

Each will have an investment thesis that may be restrictive regarding:

No need to waste your bullets, time and energy contacting the wrong investors. So be very thorough when doing your homework or get professionals to help you identify the ones you wish to attract to the table.

Let ‘s now suppose you’ve aligned your ducks and are now ready to send out your great deck to the identified investors, what happens next? You wait and hope for an email that will either ask you further questions or invite you to a pitch. That is the best scenario that does not require, two or three reminders just to see if they’ve received your precious message while you wait in vain.

Let’s be positive and fast forward to your “pitch” tour where said investors are enthusiastic about your project and want to deep dive into all the hidden corners of your company/ project/ product/ market.

 The Data Room

Connections are made, networks are activated, and the investigation is on-going. Prepare your contracts, IPs, your KOL contacts, financial statements, Cap table, certificates, assets etc . Make it quickly available in an organised, transparent manner that will not only induce trust and professionalism but also speed up this whole Due Diligence process.

Then, according to the amount being raised and number of investors involved, a lead will come forth,  legal advisors will join in and discussions with all interested parties will hopefully lead to a Letter of Intent  or Term sheet  and finally CASH in your bank.

So imagine doing all that in 30 days! Not probable

From my own experience as head of the EIT Health Investor Network, the more you are raising, the more parties involved, the longer it takes.  My advice? Though this is hardly an exact science, plan ahead, get support and expect to add 2/ 3 months to your initial timeline. Last but not least, cash is key, don’t be too conservative in your assessment of cash flow needs . Hail to you, entrepreneur, for your enthusiasm and energy to bring your project to life and to nurture it towards growth.

If you have any feedback or questions, please get in touch at investors@eithealth-investornetwork.eu

 

Caroline Saï

Head of the EIT Health Investor Network ( operated by Angels Santé)

& COO of Angels Santé (Angels for health- France)- proud member of EBAN

Barcelona, Spain. On June 28-30 EBAN participated to 4YFN – a conference gathering influencers and pioneers, representatives of industry and finance. In the great halls of Fira Gran Via more than 400 startups exhibited their technology and over 200 pitched on stage. Founders and leading investors shared their first-hand experience on steering a business to success, designing programs to collaborate with each other, and look at how new tech horizons will influence humanity and society in the future.

Within this pool of knowledge and drive, Eban partnered with MedAngels – the federation of business angel networks in the Mediterranean and long standing partner of The Next Society, a project funded by the European Commission and led by Anima Investment Network. For the past 4 years, Eban worked with The Next Society to bridge European and Middle East – North African innovation ecosystems, facilitate cross learning and soft landing, and connecting public and private actors with the skillset to accelerate ventures and increase investments in the MENA region.

The round table co-hosted by The Next Society and MedAngels focused on the relevance of building trust among actors in different countries and using smart mechanisms to channel cross-border capital into promising startups, such as soft landing.

The round table featured investors deeply liaised to European and Middle Eastern seed and pre-seed investment arenas, including Marcel Dridje, President of Sophia Business Angels and initiator of a number of angel networks across Middle East and Africa together with Candace Johnson, EBAN President Emeritus and relentless advisor of startups globally, Jacopo Losso, EBAN Director of Secretariat and Tarek El Kady, founder and chairmen of MedAngels.

The common take away from speakers was that nurturing personal relationships among private investors is necessary to intensify cross-border co-investments. Moreover, having investors from different countries on the cap table provides early stage companies with diverse expertise and market intel, facilitating a global mindset since inception and the access to new markets. To overcome barriers to investing in less developed regions in terms of policy and financial frameworks, The Next Society identified soft landing as a value added mechanism for cross-border transactions: through soft landing, companies establish a legal entity closer to the investor, in a country with business-friendly regulation where the investor is familiar with the legal framework.

The Next Society, supported by Eban and MedAngels, will follow up on these takeaways as follows:

– To seed and nurture relations between investor and innovator communities, European investors will participate to a three-days exploration of the MENA ecosystem, meeting public stakeholders, local investors and their portfolio companies ready to scale in Europe. The program includes a deep dive into programs and incentives to investing in the region, best practice sharing and networking between founders and angels. The program will take place in the first days of October in Cairo, in parallel with the Techne Summit. Itida – the development agency for the IT industry in Egypt – will be a partner and sponsor of the program along with The Next Society.

– To facilitate cross-border deals among international angels, The Next Society will make the case for soft landing and identify promising companies to soft land MENA or EU markets. The soft landing process will be led by The Next Society in the form of one-to-one advisory to founding teams. Partners in the initiatives strongly feel soft landing should become the best practice for overseas deals as it de-risks the transaction for foreign investors while allowing to keep talents and operations in the home country, thus contributing to job creation and competitiveness at the local level.