Login
You are...
Products
Business account A professional account with far more comprehensive services than a traditional bank Collection Cash your customers quickly and easily Accounting Anytime provides invoicing software, facilitates your accounting and helps you with administrative formalities. Financing Discover a wide range of services to support your growth. Whether you're self-employed or a large company, our solutions are tailored to your needs. Cash Management View the banking position of all your activities in real time. Put in place an analytical vision of your flows and give meaning back to your banking operations.
Mastercard business cards Discover the services and Mastercard cards available to you. Corporate expense management Capped Mastercard cards with employee rights management. Managing association expenses The dedicated solution for associations to manage their business expenses. Insurance and legal protection Insurance is included in cards or packages, and meets the needs of both the self-employed and large companies. Chartered Accountants To make your life easier and avoid errors in your declarations, entrust your accounting to chartered accountants.
Expense management
Rates

NewSpace: French start-ups take on the space industry

Published on September 15, 2022 by Pierre Belhache - 4 mins reading time
VSE/SME Startup/innovation

Over the past 10 years, technological advances and falling costs have led to an increase in the number of satellite launches worldwide. French NewSpace start-ups see this as an opportunity to compete with incumbent players in the space industry.

Growing interest in satellite data

U-Space is one of the new French start-ups in the space industry sector, which has long been the preserve of institutional players such as the European Space Agency and NASA.

Based in Toulouse, U-Space specializes in the manufacture of new-generation nanosatellites, and has just completed a €7 million round of financing with BNP Paribas Développement, Bpifrance and Karot Capital.

As U-Space president Fabien Apper explains to Les Echos, we are currently witnessing " an explosion in the number of customers wanting to offer services based on satellite data collected in space ".

Demand is strong: these customers are ready to buy dozens, even hundreds of satellites. France's SpaceTech start-ups are well aware of this, and are constantly innovating to carve out an increasingly important place for themselves in this market.

NewSpace: the multiplication of French start-ups

The Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES) encourages the creation of new SpaceTech start-ups through its SpaceFounders incubator, while specialized funds such as Cosmi Capital and Expansion help them to develop.

Major corporations are also beginning to take an interest in these new players. Thales and Airbus, for example, are working with U-Space to facilitate its access to export markets.

Start-up Exotrail, founded in 2017, is one of the pioneers in the sector. It has developed expertise in space logistics, and is developing solutions designed to improve satellite performance. Earlier this year, Exotrail developed a space vehicle capable of simultaneously guiding several satellites, with its first flight scheduled for October 2023 on a SpaceX rocket.

Rennes-based start-up Unseenlabs specializes in maritime surveillance, intercepting radio frequency signals from space using 7 satellites to combat illegal fishing, degassing and piracy. Within the next 2 to 3 years, the company aims to deploy some twenty satellites in low orbit.

 

Toulouse-based start-up Anywaves manufactures miniaturized antennas for small satellites, while Prométhée specializes in Earth observation data.

 

All these start-ups are counting on the France 2030 plan to help them develop further. In particular, they need to be able to cut costs by producing in larger quantities, and must attract new investors if they are to compete with companies based in China and the USA.