Our portfolio companies have all been carefully selected. We only invest in businesses we truly believe in. Some of them are just starting out, and others are now well on their way. All of them have the potential to become the leading companies of tomorrow.
For the company Gomspace, June 16 2016 represents a major milestone. When the Stockholm-based First North stock exchange closed, Gomspace had gone public and sold shares for 100 million SKK. Additionally, a group of investors subsequently bought shares for another 25 million SKK. With the IPO, Gomspace has now raised enough capital to realize their next goal.
Niels Buus, CEO of GomspaceBorean has provided the framework for the birth of the company. This has been completely vital to us.
- We are now in the initial stages of getting established in Singapore and the United States. The first step is setting up sales offices, but in the U.S. we will also have a technical facility at some point. We are also going to be doing a lot of product developing. We are especially focused on increasing operational life in space. The variation of temperature is quite extreme in space – it is comparable to taking the electronic equipment from a warm oven and putting it into the freezer and back again, every time it orbits the earth. An it does that in an hour and a half, explains Gomspace CEO Niels Buus and continues:
We are also going to build a new production facility and incorporate an EPR system into the company. Additionally – I kid you not – we are in the process of establishing a company in Mauritius which is going to launch equatorial satellites, servicing Africa. So we have a lot going on. To put it simply, we are investing 80 million. So we have to make sure, we do it right.
Before the IPO, the company many years becoming established as a nanosatellite market player. They gained a competitive edge on the international market with their small satellites which –unlike larger, expensive satellites – cost only a few million.
- We can deliver satellites that cost between a hundredth and a thousandth of the prize of a large satellite. That is how big the difference is, says Niels Buus.
- What is unique about Gomspace is that we started selling our products when the company was just one month old. Unlike our foreign competitors, we cannot survive on government support. Our growth has been purely commercial. And that gives us an advantage compared to many others.
Borean Innovation – formerly known as NOVI Innovation – believed early in the founders’ ambition to develop small, commercial satellites. Consequently, the innovation incubator has played a crucial roll in the establishment of Gomspace as a company. As CEO Niels Buus expresses it:
- Borean has provided the framework for the birth of the company. This has been completely vital to us. They have a very good understanding of what it takes to start a company. The manage to give it a place where it can grow. And that is a special mindset. They are more “let’s see what they can do!” instead of “they probably can’t do it”. In my opinion, that is very important.
With the IPO safely in place, Gomspace are now in a position to fulfil their ambition and disrupt the entire satellite business.
- What we are going for is changing – disrupting – the entire satellite business by providing satellites that are far, far cheaper and that let us distribute the satellite capacity across the globe. Instead of a few large, expensive satellites, we can build for example 60 satellites at a much lower cost than the building prize of a single large one. From that you can create a service that covers the globe continually much, much cheaper, explains Niels Buus.
A nanosatellite is a small cube or frame that contains various circuit boards which include communications equipment, computer controls, power supply, solar panels and unfolding antennas. A copper coil allows the satellite to be controlled in relation to the earths magnetic field.
