Venture fund to invest in Israel’s ‘new space’ industry

Earth & Beyond Ventures, a new early-stage venture fund investing in Israel’s emerging commercial space ecosystem, has launched with commitments of $125 million to leverage Israel’s expertise in deeptech, aerospace, and satellite engineering.

The fund is backed by manufacturer and Nasa supplier Corning Inc, Japanese electronics giant Kyocera Corp, Israeli satellite firm SpaceCom and Samtec, a manufacturer of electronic connectivity components, it said in a statement.

In addition, the Israel Innovation Authority also backs the fund.

The venture fund’s launch comes at a time of rapid growth in the “new space” industry, also known as the commercial or private space industry. It is dominated by the private sector and entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, unlike the traditional space industry, which has been primarily government-funded and focused on space exploration, communication, and defence, the fund said in a statement.

Earth & Beyond will invest between $500,000 and $2 million for seed and pre-seed companies in technologies such as semiconductors, robotics, new materials, sensors, smart farms, quantum computing, solar power, cyber security, and alternative proteins.

“Together with our investors and partners in the ecosystem, our job is to identify and support the deep technologies and ideas that can become powerful applications not just here on earth, but in space as well,” said Earth & Beyond Ventures CEO Baruch Schori.