FUSE, a venture capital firm, is launching a dedicated space program to provide initial funding to founders looking to get their ideas off the ground, one of the firm’s founding partners told Payload.
FUSE 101: The Seattle-based VC fund, which started in 2020, may be based in the backyard of the nation’s satellite industry, but investors at FUSE initially “argued about whether we should ever touch a space company,” Brendan Wales, a founding partner, said.
In January 2024, the firm took the leap with Quindar, leading the $6M seed extension for the startup looking to simplify the complex task of operating satellite constellations. Just last month, FUSE made its second investment, joining the $11M seed round for Lumen Orbit, which is working to build data centers in space.
Space in the spotlight: The new FUSE Space Program will invest $1M in early space companies. The CEOs of Quindar and Lumen Orbit will serve as scouts, helping to find founders and ideas that would make good investments.
While there’s no cap on the number of companies in which the firm will invest, Wales said he expects FUSE will help fund three to four space companies a year, which will also allow the founding teams access to the firm’s extensive network of mentors across many industries.
Goldilocks: Wales said FUSE’s size—it raised a $250M second fund in 2023—makes it a good fit to invest in early stage space startups, and be able to continue backing them if the business takes off.
“We noticed in the market that there’s a lot of people that are seed funds, they tend to be fairly small…that are focused on space, so they don’t have a lot of capital to back companies when they’re doing well,” he said. “And then there’s a lot of huge firms that have a focus on space, but their funds are too big, so they don’t really have an interest in writing a million dollar check.”
The right stuff: So what is the FUSE team looking for?
- Startups that can quickly prove their value in solving space infrastructure problems, from locking down security to boosting performance to storing data efficiently.
- Well-rounded founding teams that have ideally already worked together in the industry
- Company leaders who can articulate complex tech in a concise and clear way
Want to learn more? Wales said the door is open for space companies who think they might be a good fit to reach out to him or Nolan Van Nortwick, a FUSE associate working on the space program.
