{"id":17145,"date":"2025-01-18T00:22:09","date_gmt":"2025-01-17T16:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/seattle-area-firm-launches-program-to-back-new-space-ventures-with-million-dollar-bets\/"},"modified":"2025-01-18T00:22:09","modified_gmt":"2025-01-17T16:22:09","slug":"seattle-area-firm-launches-program-to-back-new-space-ventures-with-million-dollar-bets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/seattle-area-firm-launches-program-to-back-new-space-ventures-with-million-dollar-bets\/","title":{"rendered":"Seattle-area firm launches program to back new space ventures with million-dollar bets"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Fuse has come up with a mission patch for its program to back early-stage space ventures. (Fuse Graphic)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Seattle-area venture capital firm Fuse wants to light a spark for entrepreneurs focusing on the final frontier, and it\u2019s willing to invest a million dollars to turn a good idea into a great startup.<\/p>\n

The Fuse Space Program will focus on the Seattle space ecosystem in particular, said Brendan Wales, founding partner at the Bellevue, Wash.-based firm.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s going to be a huge funnel of people spinning out of Blue Origin and Starlink and SpaceX and Boeing that are going to go build these next-generation companies, and we want to be there for them,\u201d Wales told GeekWire. \u201cWe want people to know that we\u2019re there to back them at Day Zero.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fuse has already been there with financial backing for a couple of space ventures: Redmond, Wash.-based Lumen Orbit, which aims to put data centers in Earth orbit; and Colorado-based Quindar, which markets spacecraft management software. Wales said the CEOs of Lumen and Quindar will serve as \u201cventure scouts\u201d for the Fuse Space Program. <\/p>\n

The basic idea is that Fuse will provide $1 million or more in pre-seed funding for promising space startups. Those investments will come in part from Fuse\u2019s second venture fund, a $250 million chunk of capital that Fuse raised in 2023. \u201cWe imagine it\u2019s going to be 10 companies in the next few years, because we\u2019ll invest more over time,\u201d Wales said.<\/p>\n

\"Brendan
Brendan Wales is a general partner at Fuse. (Fuse Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Wales said he\u2019s intrigued by ventures that facilitate space-based networking services. \u201cWe think there\u2019s a ton of opportunity in and around performance and security, because you\u2019re going to have important data up there, and you\u2019ve got to make sure there are no issues,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But as far as he\u2019s concerned, the sky\u2019s the limit when it comes to startup opportunities in space \u2014 particularly once SpaceX\u2019s Starship super-rocket enters commercial service. \u201cIt\u2019s not like we\u2019re seeing a lot there yet, but I do think space tourism is going to be a huge category,\u201d Wales said.<\/p>\n

Fuse\u2019s founding partners are more familiar with the startup scene than the space scene, but the ideas that come in will be vetted by limited partners who specialize in the space industry.<\/p>\n

Wales emphasized that the space venture program will focus on pre-seed funding rather than later-stage investments. \u201cIf we\u2019re going to be there at Day Zero, which is our preference with the Fuse Space Program, the valuations aren\u2019t going to be $50 million,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to be down there at the ground floor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Fuse is flexible when it comes to its portfolio\u2019s geographical balance, Wales will be keeping an especially close eye on the Seattle space ecosystem.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are five minutes away from a city that designs and manufactures 80% of the world\u2019s satellites, right? For us not to own that market of entrepreneurs is a missed opportunity,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to wake up every day so when people are spinning out of those companies, they call us. One day, maybe we can be perceived as the best investor in the world in space because of that advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fuse has come up with a mission patch for its program to back early-stage space ventures. (Fuse Graphic) Seattle-area venture capital firm Fuse wants to light a spark for entrepreneurs focusing on the final frontier, and it\u2019s willing to invest a million dollars to turn a good idea into a great startup. The Fuse Space […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4323,4458,4329],"class_list":["post-17145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-fuse","tag-fuse-venture-partners","tag-startups"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}