At a meeting of the board of its subsidiary Telespace Participation, France's CNES space agency has selected CapDecisif Management to set up and manage CosmiCapital, a capital innovation fund designed to invest in space industry businesses and applications. Telespace Participation, whose mission is to acquire minority stakes in innovative companies, issued a call for tenders in November 2017.

Set up by CNES, CosmiCapital will be the first French investment fund dedicated to space. It aims to raise between €80m and €100m from institutional investors to invest in European start-ups. The fund will help to raise the profile of space and the use of space and will promote the development of space-related services.

It will begin operating at the start of next year. The size of CNES’s investment in CosmiCapital will be decided by the agency’s Board of Directors. A dedicated team with strong space-related experience will manage the fund from Paris and Toulouse, where CapDecisif Management will open an office.

“The space sector is undergoing a deep transformation as a result of its convergence with digital applications and new public and private players entering the market,” said CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall. “This new fund will be an essential building block that will help to ensure that our agency succeeds in this endeavour.”