Dublin, Ireland · Accelerator Amena Ventures is a Dublin-based early-stage venture and venture-partner firm incorporated in 2021, co-led by Managing Directors José Sousa and Sukhdev Hansra, whose backgrounds span investment banking, corporate finance and business transformation across Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. It focuses on seed and pre-seed investments in hardware-intensive sectors — robotics, autonomous systems, IoT and space-tech connectivity — primarily across the EMEA region.
Beyond capital, Amena positions itself as a hands-on operating partner, supporting founders on business development, fundraising, governance and talent. Its portfolio — concentrated in Portugal — includes Connect Robotics (autonomous drone delivery), Ethiack (AI-powered ethical hacking, €4M seed 2024), Xpectraltek (multispectral imaging) and Connected (NB-IoT satellite connectivity, acquired by Open Cosmos in 2025).
Vilnius, Lithuania · Startup Builds laser optical communication terminals (ATLAS series) for secure space-to-ground, space-to-space and ship-to-ship data links. Selected for NATO's DIANA accelerator and works with the Lithuanian navy.
Riga, Latvia · Accelerator Commercialization Reactor is a deep-tech venture creation platform and accelerator established in 2009 in Riga, ranked among the most experienced science-commercialisation programmes in Europe. It pairs scientists and researchers with entrepreneurial co-founders to build deep-tech startups, and provides up to €50k in pre-seed investment through a six-month programme focused on market and customer development. In 2024 it launched ESA BIC Latvia as the national ESA incubation centre operator, and has supported over 40 portfolio ventures across biotech, cleantech, materials, and space.
Munich, Germany · Person Daniel Metzler is Co-founder & CEO of the orbital-launch company Isar Aerospace. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Daniel leads the orbital-launch company Isar Aerospace.
Riga, Latvia · Incubator ESA BIC Latvia is the official European Space Agency Business Incubation Centre for Latvia, operated by Commercialization Reactor, opened in November 2024 at Riga Technical University. Over five years the centre aims to support 12–18 startups with free financial assistance, two years of business coaching, technical training, access to ESA expertise and satellite data, and legal consultations. It is part of the pan-European ESA BIC network and focuses on space-tech applications and downstream services.
Wroclaw, Poland · Venture Capital Hard2beat is a Wrocław-based pre-seed and seed venture fund founded in 2024 by Maciej Zawadziński — a serial entrepreneur with three exits including Piwik PRO (sold to Kirk Kapital in 2023) — alongside Maciej Frankowicz and Konrad Trzyna, who previously ran Shape VC's BRIdge Alpha programme. The fund closed at 84M PLN (~€20M), with PFR Ventures providing 56.5M PLN under the FENG programme and 30 private investors contributing the rest.
Hard2beat backs Polish deep-tech founders from pre-revenue to early revenue with 1–3M PLN initial cheques and follow-on up to 8M PLN, targeting teams with a genuine technical moat in cybersecurity, medtech, biotech, devtools, dual-use/defence, gamedev, robotics and spacetech — explicitly avoiding B2C and shallow AI. By mid-2026 it had made seven investments including the open-source cybersecurity platform Defguard, autonomous UAV startup DefendEye, Alzheimer's wearable developer Neuromedical, neuroprotection biotech Pikralida, Unreal Engine AI copilot Ludus AI, and devtools company Graftcode (€2.1M, led with DigitalOcean Ventures, 2026).
Helsinki, Finland · Venture Capital Icebreaker.vc was founded in 2017 in Helsinki by Aleksi Partanen, Lasse Lehtinen, Riku Sepälä, and Teddie Wardi to address the pre-seed funding gap in Finland, Estonia, and Sweden. The firm targets idea-stage companies with tickets of €150,000–€1.5 million, with Fund III targeting €30 million. Portfolio standouts include Hoxhunt (raised $40M Series B), Aibidia ($28M Series B), and ReOrbit (€45M Series A). Icebreaker is known for its diversity focus, backing 3.5× more immigrant founders than the Finnish VC average.
Luxembourg City, Luxembourg · Event Luxembourg's largest tech conference held at the European Convention Center, attracting 5,000+ attendees from the fintech, space tech, and cybersecurity sectors. Strong institutional presence from EU bodies and Luxembourg's financial regulators. Features a startup pitch zone and investor meetings. Tickets from EUR 200.
Vilnius, Lithuania · Venture Capital Iron Wolf Capital is Vilnius-founded deep tech and AI fund established in 2018, with additional offices in London and Tallinn. Its second fund, closed at €100 million, is the largest seed-stage deep tech fund in Baltic history, targeting 25 early-stage companies across AI, photonics, robotics, and space innovation built by Baltic founders and diaspora globally. The team combines backgrounds from Deutsche Bank, YPlan, and early Lithuanian VC history; initial tickets run €0.5–2 million and the fund typically leads or co-leads rounds. Iron Wolf has backed over 20 startups covering sectors from agritech and pharma to defence-adjacent AI.
Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg · Startup A Luxembourg deep-tech startup founded in 2018 by a team with backgrounds in ESA space missions. Maana Electric builds the TerraBox, a mobile factory that produces solar panels from sand and electricity using in-situ resource utilisation (ISRU) technology. The company signed a multi-million-euro contract with the European Space Agency in 2021 and received first commercial orders worth €100 million in 2023. Its LunaBox variant is designed to manufacture solar panels and generate oxygen on the Moon.
Luxembourg City, Luxembourg · Event Luxembourg's flagship tech and innovation conference at Luxexpo The Box, positioned as a bridge between the Greater Region's corporates, the Luxembourg fund industry, and international deep-tech founders. Programming spans AI, space tech, fintech, and sustainable finance with 4,000+ attendees and an exhibition floor featuring Luxembourg-based scale-ups like Paul Wurth, Gcore, and LuxAI. The 2024 edition launched with ministerial support and has since become the country's primary innovation showcase. Tickets EUR 100-400.
Helsinki, Finland · Person Pekka Laurila is the Chief Strategy Officer and Co-founder of ICEYE, the Finnish company that pioneered commercial SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite technology for earth observation. ICEYE has grown to operate one of the world's largest commercial SAR satellite constellations, serving customers in insurance, government, and disaster response globally. Laurila is a well-known figure in the Nordic space technology and deep tech ecosystems and is a keynote speaker at NORDEEP 2026.
Milan, Italy · Venture Capital Primo Ventures (operating entity: Primomiglio SGR), led by chairman Gianluca Dettori and founded in 2016, is a Milan-based VC managing approximately €530 million in assets across digital and space-focused funds. It launched the first Italian venture capital fund dedicated to space technologies — Primo Space Fund (target €80 million, first close €58 million) — in partnership with the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and Fondazione E. Amaldi, backing deep-space logistics, propulsion, and AI for spacecraft. Portfolio investments include D-Orbit (space logistics, Series C co-lead) and AIKO (AI for autonomous spacecraft operations). Beyond space, its digital fund invests in B2B SaaS, cybersecurity, and fintech at seed and early-growth stages.
Elche, Spain · Person Co-founder and CEO of PLD Space, the Elche-based company developing the Miura family of reusable launch vehicles. He co-founded PLD Space in 2011 to give Europe sovereign access to space for small satellites.
Warsaw, Poland · Angel Investor Owner of Kulczyk Investments and founder of Manta Ray VC, Sebastian is a prominent growth and technology investor supporting globally scalable startups. Through both direct investment and ecosystem initiatives such as InCredibles, he has helped position Polish founders on international markets. His wider portfolio context includes involvement around major outcomes such as Base (acquired by Zendesk), and investments including Iceye and Brainly.
Luxembourg City, Luxembourg · Startup The European headquarters of Spire Global (founded 2012, originally San Francisco), established in Luxembourg City in 2017 with backing from the Luxembourg Future Fund. Spire operates one of the world's largest commercial nanosatellite constellations — over 110 CubeSats — collecting maritime, aviation, and weather data sold as space-to-cloud analytics. Luxembourg is home to Spire's maritime data team and served as the anchor for a $70 million Series C round led by the Luxembourg government.
Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg · Incubator Luxembourg's national technology incubator, established in June 2012 by the state as a merger of the former Technoport incubator and the Ecostart business support infrastructures. Located at the Belval Innovation Campus, it hosts around 40 companies at any given time across ICT, health, space, and industrial sectors. Services include a business incubation programme, a fabrication laboratory, and coworking space. More than 150 companies have passed through since inception.