Newable invested alongside Airbus, the British Business Bank and others. Newable was one of the founders of Seraphim original fund back in 2006 before it spun out.

The space sector is getting a lot of attention currently. The government’s Industrial Strategy identifies ‘space’ as a sector where the UK is and has the potential to remain a world leader. At the weekend, the Financial Times published a two-page article looking at the investment opportunities in the sector and featured the Seraphim Space Fund prominently.

However, the space sector remains widely misunderstood. It is less about putting people on Mars and more about utilising the information coming from space ‘downstream’. Michael Jones, a partner at Seraphim Space Fund and the founder of Google Earth, uses a great analogy; “it is not about the IPhone, it is about the apps”.

Since the Fund launched at the back end of last year, it is has already screened over 400 young companies and invested in one.

Newable’s investment opens up exciting opportunities. The investment is attractive in and of itself in terms of the long term returns. However, we are ideally placed to offer these emerging companies a range of support. Our Innovation team can help companies with the commercialisation, protection and internationalisation of the technologies and IP. Our Export team can help these ‘born global’ companies penetrate new markets. Our Funding team can provide loan funding to sit alongside potential equity investment. Our Consulting team can advise on data security and compliance issues.

We have just made a video with Seraphim and the Space Catapult at Harwell in Oxfordshire. It aims to provide an insight into the sector describe some of the applications that space technologies will increasingly enable and that the Fund will support and bring forward.