New Resources for Aerospace Start-ups at Commercial Space blog.

I've updated the layout and quite a few of the links at the Commercial Space Blog (http://acuriousguy.blogspot.com/).

Some of these new links include:

1. The Canadian Association of Business Incubators (CABI), dedicated to creating employment and economic activity through the development of enterprises supported by the business incubation industry
2. The Canadian Venture Capital Association website and their blog "Capital Rants" focused on "the good, the bad and the ugly of venture capital in Canada."
3. The "MaRS Blog on Canadian Innovation" focused on something called "Convergence Innovation" and activities occurring at the MaRS Development District.
4. The Money Tree Report, a quarterly study of venture capital investment activity from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association.
5. The National Angel Capital Organization, an umbrella organization of various Canadian based angel investment groups.
6. The Secure World Foundation blog. Although not the typical source of funding, the Secure World Foundation maintains financial relationships with a number of space focused media outlets and publishes various documents relating to space situational awareness, traffic management, orbital debris, Earth observation, international law and the avoidance of a space arms race.

I hope people find these links useful.

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Noah Z. on October 15, 2009 at 1:47am: As has been said any number of times over the years, one of the biggest challenges facing any new company in the space industry, particularly those developing new launch vehicles, is not necessarily the technology but the financing. Convincing skeptical investors that the technologies are ready, the potential markets are sufficiently large, and the regulatory issues addressable can be as difficult as the nuts-and-bolts of building the vehicle itself. It’s little surprise, then, that the ventures in the entrepreneurial “NewSpace” realm that have made the most progress to date are primarily those self-funded by a wealthy founder, from Robert Bigelow of Bigelow Aerospace to Elon Musk of SpaceX, among others. But why is it so difficult for space ventures to get money in the first place? It’s not because there’s a lack of investment in general in the economy: plenty of money is going to ventures in other sectors of the economy. So i think you will not need any quick cash.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Chuck Black on October 15, 2009 at 6:41pm: Noah, you sound like a nice guy so I'm going to tell you in the sweetest and broadest possible way that funding is actually pretty simple because venture capitalists and angel investors know nothing about most of the businesses they invest in and are therefore forced to use a fairly common set of metrics.

First they look at you and your team and ask "have you done this before?" and "are you trustworthy?" This is the first question Paul Allen asked Burt Rutan before funding Space Ship One.

Then they ask if you bring any money to the table. Bigelow, Musk and others do indeed bring their own money to the table but if you look closely, you'll find that neither one is self funding their entire project; they're just contributing a portion. Launch vehicles cost more than dot.com start-ups so fewer people can afford to ante up their portion (sometimes you can leverage existing work for cash which is likely what Rutan did).

And finally, they want to know when they'll get the money back that they loaned you.

Skeptical investors don't need to be convinced the techniques are ready, or the markets are sufficiently large or the regulatory issues are solvable (remember, they don't really know enough about the industry to judge).; ▶ Reply to This