About the 2009 forum
Organised by ESA’s Technology Transfer Programme Office (TTPO), the ESA Investment Forum 2009 followed the previous and highly successful editions that took place at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands.
In collaboration with Europe Unlimited, ESA organised the 3rd edition of the ESA Investment Forum in La Hulpe, near Brussels, on the 7 April 2009 with considerable success:
- It was hosted by the Region of Wallonia and more specifically by SkyWin- Wallonia’s space cluster, and AWEX - Wallonia’s trade and foreign investment agency, contributing to the organization of the ESA Investment Forum
- It attracted over 150 participants amongst Entrepreneurs, Venture Capitalists, Corporate Representatives, Advisors, in satellite downstream applications such as navigation, communication, earth observation, location-based services and other information and communication technologies and applications
- It presented 36 selected European high-tech company presentations from a pool of over 50 applications, with these companies typically seeking series B-C financing rounds
- The presentations were reviewed in 6 sector-focused sessions by panels international Venture Capital and Corporate investors who rated the business potential, technology merit, competitive position, team strength, investment/partnering offer and the quality of the profile and presentation
- Each session picked out the highest scoring presentation on these 7 criteria and the 6 selected companies were honoured at the end of the Forum
- Some 40 venture capitalist investors attended the Forum reviewing company presentations and giving individual feedback
- Over 120 pre-arranged One2One meetings between entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, corporations, advisers took place
- More than 2/3 of the selected presenters attended a Venture Academy the day before the Forum to fine-tune their presentations. This was done in association with the EC projects KIS-IP (Knowledge Intensive Services Innovation Platform) and KIS4SAT and hosted by the Galaxia Incubator near the Redu/Trasinne Satellite Ground Station
The 2009 ESA Investment Forum fostered the investment in space-related technologies across Europe as shown by the following facts & Figures:
Country of selected presenters (Total 36)
Country of the participants (Total 153)
Participants by role (Total 153)
Based on their sector, each company was assigned to a review session to present before a panel of 5-6 expert reviewers. During the session, reviewers rated each presentation and awarded the Best Presentation Award to the following companies:
The ESA Investment Forums 2010 will take place in Stuttgart and Milan on 19 May and October 2010 respectively!
