Italian fund manager Primomiglio announces the first closing of Primo Space, an early-stage venture fund focused on space start-ups. The closing of Primo Space reached an initial amount of €58 million. The final target size for the Fund is set at €80 million. The EIF’s €30 million commitment in the Fund is part of the Investment Plan for Europe. It is supported by Horizon 2020, the European Commission’s Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, and the new InnovFin Space Equity Pilot.

Primo Space will invest in technology spin-offs, start-ups and SMEs, and will work closely with the Italian research and academic world, including the Italian Space Agency, to bring the most promising technologies and entrepreneurial teams to the market. The target of the fund is not only entrepreneurial companies engaged in “upstream” business, which refers to entrepreneurial companies with space infrastructure technologies such as electronics, robots and satellites but also includes “downstream” industries, that is, companies engaged in space technology (especially satellite network) supported terrestrial applications, such as communication, encryption, geographic location and earth observation and other startups.