A new investment company focused on space technology has raised its targeted £180mln ahead of its trading debut on the London Stock Exchange on Wednesday, from investors including billionaire Sir Richard Branson.
With interest in space at its highest altitude since the moon landing, as Branson himself skirted into space over the weekend amid a billionaire space race with Elon Musk’s Space Ex and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, the Seraphim Space Investment Trust PLC (LON:SSIT) raised gross proceeds of £150mln from a placing, subscription and offer, plus another £28.4mln in connection with its initial acquisitions.
The investment trust, whose chairman Will Whitehorn was formerly Virgin Galactic's president, said that Branson's investment vehicle was a new investor and Airbus had remained an investor, confirming reports from Bloomberg, but did not say what size the stakes were.
Seraphim said last week that it has 19 investments in its portfolio, including £2mln newly poured into a pair of UK companies ahead of its flotation: antenna maker Isotropic Systems and Commodities AI, which used AI and space data to predict commodity prices.
The trust plans to have acquired seed assets worth £100mln by the end of the year, including four new investments that are pending current corporate activity, giving the investment company gross assets of around £250mln.
On the timing of the trust's flotation between Branson’s space mission and an upcoming space jaunt from Jeff Bezos on a rocket from his Blue Origin company, Whitehorn told Bloomberg the company's advisers thought we were taking a risk: “It could have been that things did not work out quite so well.”