Satnews Daily
November 16th, 2017

The Government of Luxembourg Invests in Spire Global


The Luxembourg Government and Spire Global signed a cooperation agreement to develop, through the opening of a European HQ by the U.S.-based company, several key activities in the Grand Duchy focused on space platform engineering, data analytics, infrastructure engineering and business development.

The office in Luxembourg will serve as Spire’s full-service European headquarters. Spire is a satellite powered data company with offices in the US, Europe and Asia offering products for global ship tracking and high frequency weather data.

Spire Global has also announced that the company is continuing their global expansion with the opening of the new Luxembourg office and a closing of its Series C. The Luxembourg Future Fund (LFF) has committed today to becoming a shareholder in Spire, participating in Spire’s $70 million Series C financing round closing later this month. The Luxembourg Future Fund aims to stimulate the diversification and sustainable development of the Luxembourg economy and was set up by the European Investment Fund (EIF) and the Société Nationale de Crédit et d’Investissement (SNCI) and combines a EUR 120 million contribution from SNCI with EUR 30 million from the EIF.

Within the framework of the cooperation agreement, the Luxembourg Government will provide funding through the Luxembourg space program (LuxIMPULSE) and other types of R&D grants to the forthcoming operating subsidiary of Spire for research and development activities taking place in Luxembourg.

Etienne Schneider, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Economy said that the Grand Duchy has a long-celebrated reputation for creating innovative partnerships with private aerospace companies. In 1985, Luxembourg became one of the founding shareholders of SES, a landmark for satellite telecommunications and now a world leader in this sector. By formalizing our relationship with Spire, we continue our Government’s three-decade history of attracting ground-breaking companies in this sector.

Peter Platzer, CEO Spire said his company is impressed with the support, commitment, and expertise of Luxembourg when it comes to New Space. Their robust yet supportive regulatory environment for New Space companies, coupled with incredible open access to international talent and targeted investment vehicles, made Luxembourg an obvious choice for our expansion. The company will be quickly building out our office here full of some of the world’s best minds and tapping into Luxembourg’s population of incredibly talented people in business and engineering.