Not all the money made in space is made in space.
As the commercial space sector grows and crosses milestones once reserved for national agencies—landing on the Moon, building space stations, etc.—space companies have become an increasingly attractive partner to consumer brands trying to get their name out. These partnerships can spark new revenue streams for space companies, and a London-based startup is fanning the flames.
This week, Forbes Space opened a new office in Turin—Italy’s aerospace and defense hub—to help the Italian space sector foster partnerships with non-space companies.
Meet Forbes: Forbes Space, which also has offices in London and Toulouse, is a consultancy that thrives on connecting the space and non-space worlds.
While Forbes offers a wide range of advisory services, such as surfacing investment opportunities and helping space companies expand their reach into new markets, one of its primary goals is to educate non-space executives on how to leverage the space industry.
These non-space brands hire Forbes to write space strategies and foster partnerships with space companies that can often go beyond a unique branding moment. One example: a Forbes affiliate partner who advised Columbia Sportswear to join forces with Intuitive Machines, CEO Stirling Forbes told Payload. The partnership went beyond simple branding, and IM ended up using Columbia’s thermal fabric to protect the lander from extreme lunar temps.
These types of technical-meets-branding partnerships are exactly what Forbes is trying to gin up in Turin. By setting up shop in Italy, Forbes aims to help the Italian industrial base, whether in robotics, materials, or automotive manufacturing, identify ways they can contribute to Italy’s growing space ambitions, and differentiate themselves as a result.
“The purpose of the European office in Turin is to really tap into this northern Italian industrial ecosystem…[it has] a long list of companies that are global brands that may not realize the potential of space to their business,” Forbes told Payload.
The Forbes list: It’s still early days for Forbes, which was founded last year, but already the company has signed on big names in the space industry to create a bridge to terrestrial brands. Clients include Vast, Interstellar Lab, and Space Cargo Unlimited.
Forbes admits that a lot of the work remains in the “education phase,” where synergies between space and non-space companies aren’t always readily apparent to the executives in the room. As space becomes more commercial, however, Forbes is betting that appetite and opportunities for cross collaboration will grow.
“Space is still seen as the most risk taking, the most advanced, the most complex, [and] the most expensive engineering challenge that we have in society,” Forbes said. “[To] be branded as that is very powerful.”
