€170M fund for spacetech unveiled

Alpine Space Ventures, a firm dedicated to early-stage investments in the European space sector, today announced the final closing of its first fund with a total volume of €170M.

The fund primarily targets Series A rounds to build an initial position, investing in startups that serve or utilize the global space industry, with a particular focus on the industrialization of the space sector and hardware and software solutions around connectivity and data.

Alpine Space Ventures has a primary focus on investments into the European ecosystem but has some geographic flexibility to invest in the United States and beyond leveraging the team’s industry relationships especially with the early leadership team of SpaceX. A concentrated portfolio of no more than 10-15
selected investment targets will receive up to five Million Euros initially with significant dry powder reserved for follow-on rounds.

Founding Partner Bulent Altan has been an early leader at SpaceX having joined Elon Musk’s team initially in 2004 and overseeing the avionics development for Falcon 1, Falcon 9, and Dragon capsule and later the development of the initial Starlink satellites before leaving the firm eventually in 2017. Founding Partner Joram Voelklein has been successfully investing in tech since 2015 with a notable angel investment in launch company Isar Aerospace, together with Bulent, that made him one of the earliest backers of the European space tech ecosystem.

This expertise is further supplemented by Alpine Space Ventures’ investor base, made up of many entrepreneurs from the space industry - including more than 20 early SpaceX employees. Additional investors behind the fund include the European Investment Fund (EIF), the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF) and several high-profile family offices.

“We are looking forward to putting the fund’s capital to work and continuing to support the industry’s best entrepreneurs”, said Bulent Altan, Founding Partner at Alpine Space Ventures. “First and foremost, we are investing in the best teams with a strong market understanding, who are putting customer-centricity first, and are iterating though technical solutions quickly in their pursuit to build the best possible
commercial solution.”

Karan Kunjur CEO and co-founder of portfolio company K2 Space commented, "We are the newest to have joined the Alpine Space Ventures portfolio and yet we have already benefitted from having them behind us beyond their financial commitment. Bulent is a tremendous addition to our board, and we could not be
happier to have Alpine Space Ventures on our cap table.”