Invested by Europe

Benedetta Cattani is CEO and co-founder of Ecosmic, a space domain awareness company she started in 2024 with two former European Space Agency colleagues. She and her two female co-founders track satellites and warn customers about collision risks and hostile manoeuvres. They're working with the European Space Agency, Leonardo, NATO's early adoption programme, and various defence ministries. They're backed by Primo Space, the venture capital fund, and indirectly by the European Investment Fund. Benedetta argues that Ecosmic is important because space is congested, contested and complex, and that talent and determination can beat much bigger rivals. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

João Falcão Serra leads industry and finance research at the European Space Policy Institute in Vienna. He explains how he tracks global investment in space companies and why European private funding is at record levels. He looks at the forces behind the boom, including defence demand, falling interest rates and the SpaceX IPO hype, and also points to a growing spread of investment in smaller economies like Finland, Bulgaria and Poland. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rockets and satellites get the headlines. But what makes them work? Here are five technologies you've probably never heard of, but they're set to have a big impact on how rockets work and, even, on your electricity bill. We'll hear from the founders of companies working on: the pressure vessels inside every rocket and satellite; a green propellant to replace hydrazine, which can be stored for ten years and restarted in under thirty seconds; the aerospike engine, theoretically superior for sixty years and never yet demonstrated in flight; onboard software that lets satellites decide for themselves what to photograph; satellite data that helps power lines carry more electricity. Five technologies. None of them famous. All of them essential. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tomas Jonsson leads the Cassini team at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Defence Industry and Space. It's the EU's space entrepreneurship programme. He describes how Europe's space sector has changed since 2019, with many more companies, real commercial growth and significant private investment. He also talks about the careers the sector offers beyond engineering, and about how companies in Poland, the Czech Republic, Scandinavia and the EU's smaller countries are catching up to the traditional big space economies of Germany, Italy and France. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

AIKO founder Lorenzo Feruglio explains how automation lets satellites make their own decisions, reducing waste and boosting profits (because right now only 10% of the data gathered by a satellite is monetised). An interview about software, artificial intelligence and...fixing a problem that less original thinkers didn't even know existed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Europe's space investment hit a record €1.4 billion in 2025. The first half of 2026 already surpassed that amount. We look at the grants, equity, venture debt and, for the first time, commercial bank lending pushing space up the financial agenda. You'll hear from venutre capital investors at Warsaw's OTB Ventures and the European Investment Fund, bankers at the European Investment Bank, and the European Space Policy Institute analyst who tracks where the money goes. Sateliot founder Jaume Sanpera explains why an EU loan is "much more than money". He also names the financial layer Europe needs to build next. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Space is Europe's "invisible infrastructure". Giancarlo Granero, who leads on the space economy at the European Commission, explains how the European Union's Cassini initiative turned €200 million into a venture ecosystem that raised €1 billion last year. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From SpaceX engineer to space investor: Bulent Altan, one of SpaceX's first hires, now leads Alpine Space Ventures. Backed by the European Investment Fund, Alpine Space's first fund invested in some of the amazing companies you've met in this series, like Blackwave and Reflex Aerospace. Bulent talks about deep-tech investing and why Europe needs its own space industrial base. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Space has always been strategic, but Russia's invasion of Ukraine made that fact impossible to ignore. We explore how satellites became a frontline of modern warfare, why Europe's dependence on non-European networks is a vulnerability it can no longer afford, and what the continent is doing to protect its assets in orbit. From attacks on commercial satellites to the race to build sovereign European constellations, this is the story of how Europe is learning to defend itself out in space. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The European Commission owns and runs Galileo and Copernicus, the space systems behind everything from your morning weather forecast to flood rescue operations. We hear from Lorena Boix Alonso, Deputy Director General for Space at the European Commission, about why space is now critical infrastructure, why Europe's strategic autonomy depends on it, and why the new space race is nothing like the old one. With the geopolitical landscape shifting fast and investment urgency growing, Lorena makes a good case for space as the single best argument for why Europe works better together. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Space is important for lots of economic and strategic reasons. But sometimes, while I've been researching this series, I just had to shake my head in wonder and say, "Wow." Because the technology is so amazing. Omar Qaise had a moment like that. He grew up in Baghdad dreaming of space, and went on to build OQ Technology, a Luxembourg-based company putting 5G directly into space and connecting ordinary smartphones and IoT devices to satellites the size of a shoebox, no special hardware required. In this episode, we visit Omar to hear how a boy from Iraq became the founder of a European company changing what connectivity means for the 80% of the world with no mobile coverage. Backed by the EIB, OQ Technology is now scaling from five satellites to fifty and beyond. The story of how Omar knew it was working is one you won't forget. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Satellites have become the invisible backbone of modern life, as essential as electricity or running water, yet almost entirely unnoticed. We explore how the next generation of satellite infrastructure is being built in Europe, connecting space to the phone in your pocket or the Internet of Things devices used by farmers in their fields. Featuring company founders and the institutions backing them, this is the story of how pressing a button in a small office in a European village changes the direction of a satellite in. space. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This was honestly one of the most fascinating interviews I did for this entire series. Walter Ballheimer founded Reflex Aerospace on a bold idea: the biggest problem in the satellite industry isn't getting to space, it's how long it takes. His Berlin-based company builds high-performance satellites in 12 to 18 months, when the rest of the industry needs three to five years. He's genuinely one of the most clear-sighted and original thinkers in the European space sector. Don't miss this episode. From the shifting balance between commercial and defence demand, to what it took to close the largest Series A in European space tech history, Walter gives a frank and fascinating account of what it means to build a hardware company in the New Space era. He makes the case that satellites are already the invisible backbone of modern life and that as autonomous vehicles, rural connectivity, and defence systems grow more dependent on them, the race to renew them faster will never stop. He also has encouraging things to say about world peace... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Come with us to the factory floor of PLD Space in Spain, where hundreds of engineers and technicians are putting together a rocket in a building that used to make shoes. We look at Europe's plan to launch more of its own rockets in a market now dominated by the US and meet the companies who aim to get that job done. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The European Investment Bank financed 100 billion euros in new projects last year, and it's putting that financial muscle behind Europe's space industry. Robert de Groot, the vice president of the EU's financing arm responsible for space, explains his aim for an autonomous and resilient EU space sector and how the European Investment Bank is backing it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Elon Musk founded SpaceX, he set off a chain reaction that reshaped the global space industry. A former SpaceX engineer turned European investor, a rocket founder in a converted shoe factory in Spain, a banker at the European Investment Bank and the Inspector-General of the European Space Agency explain how Europe is responding. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Raul Verdú, co-founder of PLD Space in Elche, Spain, tells the story of how two amateur rocket enthusiasts started from scratch in a university cafeteria and spent 15 years building the technology, team, and credibility to develop their Miura 5 rocket. Verdú calls on European governments and agencies to back their own launchers with real contracts. With ambitions to reach 30 launches per year and increase payload capacity from half a tonne to 13 tonnes, Verdú sees PLD Space as the foundation of a new European industry that needs to rediscover the value of skilled technical workers, not just engineers and academics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr Josef Aschbacher, Director General of the European Space Agency, explains how Europe's genius for innovation is helping close the gap in space and specifically space investment with the US, and why that's so important for every aspect of daily life, as well as Europe's security and defence. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Europe owns two of the world's most advanced space systems, Galileo and Copernicus, but it spends just 10% of what the US invests in space. Find out why that has to change. Experts from the European Space Agency and the European Commission explain how satellites shape daily life in ways most people never notice. We also look at how Russia's invasion of Ukraine exposed Europe's dependence on foreign rockets, and why closing the investment gap is a strategic imperative. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Euros in Space is the second season of Invested by Europe , from the European Investment Bank. It explores the people, the companies, and the money behind Europe's space economy. Hear from the rocket builders, satellite makers, investors, and institutions working to secure Europe's place in the new space race. Subscribe so you don’t miss any of our 30 episodes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.