European Space Agency Director General Josef Aschbacher. Photo: ESA

PARIS — In an address at the World Space Business Week (WSBW) event in Paris, European Space Agency Director General Josef Aschbacher told attendees that the ESA Directorate for Commercialization he launched in 2021 has now signed 47 individual agreements with venture capitalists worth 460 million euros ($511.8 million).

According to Aschbacher, who established the Directorate for Commercialization just six months after he took office in January 2021, the goal of pumping capital into Europe’s private sector was to accelerate Europe’s global position in the future commercialization of space.

“Traditionally, Europe’s long-term tech investments in space have moved very slowly,” said Aschbacher. “In the United States, you see what NASA has done in the private sector with the COTS [Commercial Orbital Transportation Services] program and it’s remarkable. The fragmentation we have in Europe slows everything down. I said three years ago that my main objective was to make Europe’s space industry more agile and more open to risk-taking. These financial partnerships with investors will drive that acceleration and diversify the stakeholders in our space economy.”

Aschbacher’s comments referencing NASA were made at WSBW after opening discussions that addressed the global space industry’s ability to compete with SpaceX and its dominant tech stack across its launch and Starlink businesses.

When asked about ESA’s strategy in determining which investors or technologies would receive a share of the $460 million, Aschbacher hinted that the agency looked at tossing a lifeline to European startups that were struggling to move beyond the seed funding or prototype phase.

“After the pandemic, we realized that there were a lot of really promising companies and solutions that were sort of ‘stuck’ as investors were forced to get more selective,” said Aschbacher. “We hope this provides an incentive to see more European startups mature and contribute to the larger effort.”

Aschbacher was named ESA director general in March 2021 and his term was renewed last year through March 2025. After taking office, he published what was billed as a ‘new strategy for space in Europe,’ called Agenda 2025, aimed at accelerating European space programs and initiatives to catch up with its allied counterparts, as well as China.