Space tech investor Seraphim announces plans for London IPO
A space technology investor has this morning announced its intention to float in London.
Seraphim Space Investment Trust will be the world’s first listed space tech fund as interest in the sector ramps up.
There has been a race to commercialise spaceflight, with Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Sir Richard Branson all competing with each other.
Just this week Amazon founder Bezos announced he will join the winner of a competition on Blue Origin’s first human spaceflight next month.
Elsewhere there has been increased interest in the satellite industry, with recent reports suggesting the UK Government had signalled its interest in the low-Earth orbit satellite group OneWeb.
Seraphim is one of the world’s leading investors in space tech after launching the Seraphim Space Fund in 2016.
The trust is a newly established closed-ended investment company, which will invest in a portfolio of early and growth stage space tech companies, and will target an annualisd NAV total return of at least 20 per cent.
It will acquire a portfolio of 19 seed assets from the Seraphim Space Fund including stakes in a handful of unicorns like Arqit and Spire Global.
The fund, which also has PlanetWatchers, Altitude Angel and AST in its portfolio, was founded five years ago by Mark Boggett, its chief executive, James Bruegger and Rob Desborough.
“There is nothing short of an industrial revolution underway in the space sector,” Will Whitehorn, chair designate of the investment trust. “
Seraphim intends to begin trading on the London Stock Exchange’s main market and will publish its prospectus in the coming weeks.
It’s another coup for the London Stock Exchange which has seen a flurry of IPO activity in recent months as the Government gets underway with its planned listings review.
“The intention of the Seraphim Space Investment Trust to list – the first of its kind – on the London Stock Exchange reinforces the leading role the UK’s financial services can play in the global space sector and will keep the UK at the forefront of bringing investment and finance into this growing industry,” Lord Grimstone, minister for investment said.