Primo Space Fund holds €58m first close

The vehicle was officially announced in 2018 and launched in 2019 with the name of Astra Ventures. It has an €80m target and expects to hold a final close by the end of 2021.

Primo Space Fund is managed by a team led by Matteo Cascinari and Giorgio Minola, with the advisory of the Italian Space Agency's Fondazione E Amaldi. The team will work in partnership with numerous Italian universities, including Politecnico di Torino and University of Salerno, both active hubs of space technology spin-outs.

MJH Alma and Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe advised Primomiglio in the fundraising and first closing.

Primomiglio is also managing Barcamper Ventures, a €45m fund dedicated to digital, financial technology, big data and software companies.

Investors
Primo Space Fund has a partnership with the Italian Space Agency, and has raised capital from both institutional investors and industrial players operating in the aerospace industry. It received a €30m commitment from the European Investment Fund and €21m from Italian state-backed fund-of-funds manager CDP Venture Capital via VentureItaly in April 2020.

The fund's investor base also includes Compagnia di San Paolo, Luigi Rossi Luciani, Banca Sella and Primomiglio's management team.

Investments
The fund deploys equity tickets of €100,000-6m in seed investments, series-A and series-B rounds, and targets both upstream and downstream startups across the aerospace industry.

The vehicle invests in companies involved in the provision of technology for space infrastructure, as well as businesses working on aerospace data, earth observation and satellite communications.

The fund will invest predominantly in Italy, but will also deploy part of its capital in the rest of Europe, and a minority in companies based in the US and Israel.

People
Primomiglio – Gianluca Dettori (president).

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