Airbus Ventures is one of the most prolific investors in the space sector. And, at first glance, it sounds like any other corporate venture capital firm, nestled under Airbus, acting on behalf of the larger entity – and potentially unfriendly to disruptive startups. But it’s not. Airbus Ventures maintains an “air gap” between itself and its eponymous corporation, according to Lewis Pinault, space-focused partner at the firm. The VC operates as a self-standing fund: Airbus is a limited partner but AV has other external LPs as well, with an independent investment committee. “This was very much by design,” Pinault told me. “We knew that for us to be able to work on a trusted basis with top tier VCs in Silicon Valley … and to have insight to their startup companies, often typically still in stealth mode when they’re the most interesting .. that we would need to be co-investors on the same sort of trusted basis within the startup company,” Pinault said. It’s a telling dynamic — attempting to straddle the line between scale and agility, reputation and newness — and is important context amid a deal-making shift in the space sector.
Full report : Investing in Space: How corporate VC is a double-edged sword.
