Tallinn will continue to support space start-ups in cooperation with Tehnopol

Tallinn will continue to support the incubation of space start-ups in Tehnopol Science and Business Park by supporting the European Space Agency’s business incubator for 2022-2025.

According to Aivar Riisalu, Deputy Mayor of Tallinn, space systems and ground-based applications of space technologies play an important role in our daily lives.

“Major space-related applications include satellite communications, terrestrial remote sensing, satellite television, weather forecasting, even intelligent security and transport systems, and location-based services. They are used by state agencies, local governments, companies as well as more and more ordinary people in their daily lives,” said Riisalu. “When Estonia became a full member of the European Space Agency in 2015, a number of new business opportunities arose for Estonian technology companies. This, in turn, was supported in 2017 by the establishment of the European Space Agency’s business incubator, which operates at Tehnopol in Tallinn. ”

In total, the project aims to host eight space technology or space data start-ups in ESA Estonia’s business incubator in Tallinn over the next four years. In addition to the City of Tallinn and Tehnopol, the project consortium also includes Tallinn University of Technology, the City of Tartu, Tartu Science Park, the University of Tartu, Tartu Observatory and KredEx as a start-up loan provider.

During its three years of operation, the ESA Estonian Business Incubator in Tallinn has already created 43 jobs and paid more than 494,000 euros in labor taxes to the state. As additional financing, the start-ups of the Tallinn business incubator have attracted 3.1 million euros of investments and their cumulative sales turnover exceeded 2 million euros at the end of last year. Ten space technology start-ups in Tallinn and nine in Tartu have joined the program.

The Tallinn business incubator has been a successful start for several companies: Hepta Airborne OÜ, which automates the monitoring of power lines by analyzing satellites, drones, helicopters and big data, raised an additional 2 million euros in February this year to expand into foreign markets. The company currently operates in Estonia, Germany, Portugal, Finland and Ukraine. The optical satellite telecommunication technology developed by Golbriak Space OÜ reached space in September 2020 on board the Vega rocket launched from French Guiana. Zubax Robotics OÜ has developed electric motor controllers that can significantly increase the energy efficiency of the aerospace industry, and in July 2018, the company won the Central and Eastern European PowerUp! competition.