00:00.00
Narayan
Hi and welcome to yet another episode of the new space india podcast and today we have here lucy who is a former cnes or the french space agency engineer and now diving into the new space world and supporting companies and founders and you know big. Making the new space by bigger with Holler her work and we would love to hear from lucy Today. Her perspective on how is it to work with a legacy space. Agency was stepping into the new space world and I'm stoked to hear about some of the insights on that direction. So lucy. Thank you so much for. Taking the time and you know being on the podcast here. Great. So before we get into news space and so on I would love to hear from you your experiences of being in an environment like kness and of course you know I'm sure that you enjoyed a lot of the work there and.

00:37.43
lucie
Thank you for having me.

00:55.40
Narayan
But it will also be interesting to know what led you to taking the path that you're taking now you know with stepping away from that kind of an agency background.

01:02.44
lucie
Yeah, for sure. So let me first share with you my first day at work. It was ah back in 2000 and twelve I was a very young engineer just got my ph d an electrical engineer. And I've always been fascinated by space but I didn't really know what kind of job I could do in that ah industry so I applied for it was a temporary position in 1 of the. Ah, daughter company of Knes which is called medes. It's very specialized in life science in Space. So very niche and it was my first day at work. Ah on the Knessss ah location and I saw entering in the contra room like all the people with a headset. As you see on the on the Nasa movie. You know in the apollo program and they were all talking super fast massive screen with an astronaut doing an activity outside the international space station. So really like in the movie with them a white suit and. Saying copy and roger and so on and I was super impressed and this is how I started I started in human spaceflight. It's really something that you do out of patience by patience and there is lots of things going on in Space. You. Discover everything how a body react in this kind of harch environment. What does the plan to go back on Moon show face or even to send human to mass and for me that was completely fascinating and I felt that being at an agency I was really? ah. At the core of this handeavor and ah it was for me the right place to start and to to step into this space world. So the the Agencync and at least Knes had lots of advantages. Ah, first of all in human space like back in the day we were quite a small team and little bit different for all the people working for example in ground segment or satellite operation. It was something little bit niche you know so we had more flexibility. Ah. What I really like is the fact that being with an agency you directly in contact with international ah partners because as you know space is ah an international world so we were talking with a european space agency all the other ah national agency in europe.

03:35.54
lucie
But also traveling to nasa nasa for me was was just a dream. You know it was something that you look up on tv and I would never imagine that me like I was 53 years old were taking a plane to houston and meeting like the astronaut training team for example, so that was. Completely and new and exciting I really enjoyed my first year at Knes because thanks to the kness branding I was allowed you know to see stuff that the normal public would not see and so. After that I work approximately 6 years in the human spacef flight both on console or really with the headset supporting onboard operation but also in project development scientific ah ah experiment and so on had lots of fun and then I moved to another position within kness. It was more. On strategic and planning and here I enter the political world ofness because an agency as you know, ah space agency is political I'm not ah, having any any judgment. It's not good or bad It's just a fact but for me. It was not what I was looking for when I I entered the space world to navigate into lots of lobbying and political constraint was difficult and also I had the feeling at 1 point not to contribute to a better humankind because I was. Basically running meeting and doing public speaking but I was doing nothing with my hand and so this is why I decided to quit it was a difficult decision for me because quitting an agency position is something a little bit like you need to trust yourself that you're going to. Still be able to work in that industry and find something. Ah, but I thought it was a good time for me and I always been fascinating by the entrepreneurs. Ah whatever is the the topic but especially in space you have like. Ah, know 30 year old people that decided 1 morning said they are going to build a my sha froms scratch and for me this was super fascinating and I find this and patient and motivation that I experienced when I first started at Knes so this is the the reason why I change. And now I'm educating myself into the new space world in order to meet entrepreneur to see how I can help and how I can contribute to.

06:19.40
Narayan
Right? And from your experiences so far I know that you spent of course quite a lot of your career in the kress world of happening things there and now you're stepping into the new space where are there any you know, very distinct. Environmental changes that you see from how things are done in new space today against you know the traditional ecosystem.

06:43.40
lucie
Ah, for sure I'm going to state the obvious that what I experience is the flexibility and knes and all the major industrial player they have super high technical skill super good engineer lots of money. They do very powerful things that I think. Ah, right now. It's still only them that can do it I'm talking about like massive scientific instrument. You know this big mission. But when you have lots of people working and a massive organization. You have some inertia. Do. We say that it takes a little bit more time to take decision. To to align to change and I think it's normal. It's a legacy industry it used to be super centralized aid. There is lots of governmental interference and control because at the end it's the money of the of the people working in and working in France. So what I experience in the news space is the fact that they they're able to to changed or to buy or super quickly or to do something just on a table in a coworking space and say yeah. Well, let's let's move to a qualification model you know without having our process at Knes which is ah phase zero. What's the design phase a phase b like formal review in between do we ah allow additional money to do the next step and so on. So. There is definitely a story of timing between this this 2 um ecosystem. Ah, the second is that and I see a lot but maybe it's it's a little bit biased. Ah atne we really really care. About as ah, scientific proof and background of a new product or new concept and the first thing that we ask o ourselves is is it scientifically ah is it scientifically validated. Do we have done enough research that this is ah for example, um. Real data or the real indicator and we discuss a lot with the scientific community to say yes, it's worth it or not there is this this idea of scientific excellence behind every project and in the new space world. They just they say okay is it. Does it have the market even if it's not scientifically 1 hundred percent. The best. It's basically the first thing that they look for is a market go to market strategy is it going to like at the end they have to sell so I think it's 2 different approach. Ah.

09:33.20
lucie
What I experienced too is that we are starting especially in 2021 to work a lot more together once again when I started um at this um author position at Knes I was in a team called connect backness and the idea it was to. Makes the link between the startup. The new space startup and the agency because it's a little bit difficult to know what's happening inside the aa agency who to talk to who takes a decision like who ah, how to get bed shit how to get support and so on so we were here to basically guide. New space entrepreneur into the agents and we a small team approximately 10 people and at the beginning we had no idea. Ah what to say where to look it was difficult also to find withness the right expert that would dedicate time to discuss with the startup. Because there and it's legitimate as they were working on other projects or they were saying why are we helping this particular startup and not another 1 like you have competitor. Ah I don't know why I should allocate some of my time expertise and knowledge. To this small in particular just because they reach out so we had all this question to discuss. Ah, we face lots of ah criticism and I think it's it's normal when you change sing. It's it's complicated but now and lately I've seen people much more open at kne. To onboard startup to discuss with them to see how we can have joint projects to see how we can move from a grant situation to a procurement situation. It takes time but it's much more friendly to what startup.

11:22.60
Narayan
So yeah, that's interesting because you know in the end of the day we can compare that to a lot that is happening in India. For example I'm sure that the work ecosystem within israel is very much like nes that people are very scientifically driven and.

11:35.93
lucie
Are.

11:40.40
Narayan
They want to have have all of this heritage and very low risk taking you know attitude of course such also because of public money being involved to a large extent as well that people should make use of public money in the best possible way and not just throw it around in making experiments and supporting. Young companies to simply do some random experiments that there is a ah return for the taxpayer to investing in all of this.. What do you think is the relationship between startups and kness or esa or other such agencies that are here in Europe and. How closely do you think they work with each other.

12:20.18
lucie
And not enough I would say I see 2 2 positive signal here. First of all, we see that at the head of knesss and head of isa you have quite powerful people with like director position. That are super in favor of discussing discussing meeting in person ah going to the innovation cluster or perhapsbs and meet the startup. It takes time to infuse to the other stage of the industry but having people on top. That are super aware I think it's great. Second thing is are you familiar with the yeah, you're familiar with the is a big incubator. So what I like about the is our big business incubation centers and. That they pair with local incubator in values geographical region and I do believe but that's my personal point of view that an agency we are not here to support startup and within the agency we are here to leverage like. The whole and innovation ecosystem such as incubator cluster and all the people that are already working on their job and their mandate to help agency and to basically gave them a kind of um. Ah month and Monday do say that like a kind of mundate for them to work in their local ecosystem and I like this approach I think the agency is not supposed to be everywhere I'm not super convinced about co incubator that are within. Ah, a big company. Of course there is super successful example of this case but I don't think it applied to all the the industry and yeah, um, agency and startup work little bit together. This will I think will be accelerated in the next here especially in France because you you were familiar with our our governmentmental plan which ah is friends. 2030 they are currently investing massively into startup and new space. They just had an nevitation to tender. That was issued 2 days ago I think on microlandchial they expect several ah french company to come with a microlancher project that is able to send the first payload in orbit in 2025 and this is really a clear signal.

15:04.20
lucie
That we are working together.

15:06.68
Narayan
And I mean it's always interesting that there is a ah lag between what happens sometimes in the us and then what happens to europe and then it trickles back to somewhere in Asia right? So you have this cultural moment of things that go from like west to the east a lot in that sense.

15:12.21
lucie
Um, this is for sure.

15:25.59
Narayan
I think ah you know 1 of the things of course is how do you encourage entrepreneurs to be successful is the key question at the end every government and every policymaker is possibly should be looking at that.

15:32.75
lucie
Over.

15:41.72
Narayan
As the yards stick to look at how do we actually make young people who are building these companies or even yeah I mean mature people who are then starting out young companies can be made successful in 1 way or the other so from your experiences so far looking at all of these things. What instruments do you believe are effective in giving startups. Um fair chances fair chance in being successful.

16:09.30
lucie
Yeah to answer your question I would like to take first a step back I think we are in a great industry because of the dream that is around and I do believe that the first thing that government and urgency and public institution could do. To inspire and to push entrepreneur to go into new space and be successful. It's to continue to invest in the dream to maintain the dream. So it's mean communicate about astronaut mission. Communicate about moon and mouse we have seen there is a gemswep telescope when you look at it when you look at the picture of the movie. You know it's something that is above us as human and I do believe that the first thing that we could do is really invest in it's not just marketing. It's really. Ah, driver for as you say young people but also major people. Let's say this is amazing and I want to be part of it so that would be my first thing now moving to actual measure as you know to support innovation most of the time public institution put. Grant and founding into very low tirl mediation and proof of concept and small design then there is this massive hole where you have to find your seed investment or your commercial traction to be able to move on. And then hopefully you get procurement contract but procurement between agencyncy and and news space startup as you know is always a little bit tricky so to make entrepreneurs successful. Ah I would recommend. To strengths the interaction between agencync and entrepreneur because I've seen so many Start -ups. They don't know how it works and don't know how budgets are high located. They don't know for example for isa the rule of georeturn of how do you should be aligned with your national delegation in order to get funding on a specific topic. So there is lots of misunderstanding we should discuss more secondly, it's it's great to support mediation and hackathton and lotarl ah t aher product that and the agency could help by giving small contracts early on. The innovation ah value chain. Another recommendation. Ah we at the agency we use to know exactly what we want. So. It's not a ah procurement. It's usually invitation to tender where there's lots of requirement and at the end we get.

18:50.80
lucie
Some things that we we have design in our mind maybe ah have more flexibility give a challenge. Ah, for example, this is the exact the example of the microlancher they call ah from bp efas they don't ask you to design. Specific my child. They just say we want a microcolon air. It has to flight in 2025 and basically you're free to to propose anything so moving a little bit to a less directed cause then I think it's procurement procurement procurement showing for a startup to have commercial traction. With an actual order from a space agency that is a customer among your older customer I think this is key for success and the agency are trying to implement that of course it takes a lot of time and latency because you have to change your procurement policy and it's not tricky. But that would be another key and finally and lastly the work that we do ah at Spacef funder is to make help make the european space tech attractive for private investment. We know that investing in new space is risky. There is a huge change that our investor will lose their money. It's capital intensive most of the company are working on complex infrastructure I'm talking about in orbit servicing you know this kind of project. You will have your first satellite in 2 3 4 years on Nowbis it means that you need cash flowtering 4 years we have seen and massive seedsi I think space forge they're raised over 7 million euro just foresed as the exploration company I think it's a little bit more than 3 million soeri a are growing. We need massive ah private investment. And we can we as agency I'm not working there anymore. But I still have you know this point of view. The agency could really support and leverage. Ah, this company to be in front of investor to a attract investor because when you see znes nasa isa branding. On the kind of demo day on an event. It's it's sure a little bit. It has them different from other things that you expect. So maybe I don't know what kind what we can exactly do, but there is something to do around private investment and a startup company.

21:20.96
Narayan
And right and no I mean it's it's fascinating to hear because I think there is a lot of commonalities in expectations and also realities from what you say with what we see in India as well. For example and that's where it is interesting to hear.

21:22.87
lucie
Does that answer your questions I speak a lot.

21:34.87
lucie
So.

21:40.13
Narayan
Opinions as well because at the end of the day we can then compare a little bit and see if we are you know facing the stuff that we're facing is also faced in other parts of the world or can we learn from stuff that is being done based on your learnings. For example, that's the the key here. So.

21:54.65
lucie
And speaking about indriia if I may another thing that could be super interesting. We are working in ah in in a global industry space is global. You cannot do space in europe it. You know it makes no sense. We are not working enough with. The us as you say are a little bit advanced but we are not working in us with Asia with India with singapore with Japan with the middle east and another thing that could be interesting. You know, ah for the agency to support sparstep the agency they have this international connection. We have mou who is like ah almost always a space country in the world to to have a kind of startup french startup or european startup delegation and there's ah mou ah going for example to India meeting the entrepreneurs there. Sharing the practice and doing business because at the end you can have customer or provider supplier in another country and that's another way to strengthen the ecosystem and to work together.

23:04.99
Narayan
Yeah I mean Absolutely so the problem of course is trickling down of all of this to you know fairly small companies is always a kind of an issue there but beyond the financing problems and. You know agency related background and so on I mean how important do you think is anchor customers when it comes to the agencies acting as anchor customers to a lot of the companies. It probably makes sense a lot for Upstream companies.

23:37.43
lucie
Um, listen.

23:39.83
Narayan
Ah, especially because they're always looking for ah an anchor customer who believes in what is being built as new technology or so on is this something that you will see as very important and procurement rules being modified to enable risk taking by startups to. Have anchor customers like Knesss or issa or or so on and how effectively do you think things are open enough today for es or crest to act as anchor customers in such risky propositions. Yeah.

24:16.37
lucie
That's ah, that's a very good question and I think here you're you're touching the core of our problem namely risk taking and as we said earlier a company, a space agency is working with the taxpayer money. So my question would be is the society society ready to be resttaking it because ah basically me as a taxpayer do I politically alone at a small part of my taxes go to be invested into a risky project and is a good. Sign is that we see the society changing as a whole you know? Ah we see more and more people wanting to be entrepreneur or ah investing into cryptocurrency or this kind of thing even as individual you know so I do Believe. That's ah being uncle customer for upstream startup is ah mandatory, not mandatory, a very ah ah, non mandatory way to support upstream startups and. And I'm back with my dream point of view communicating on why we are taking this risk what does it bring to our society would help to change this procurement measure I don't know if I'm clear in what I'm saying that I think your question is super interesting. And I think the risk taking approach from the agency. It doesn't comes from the people working at the agency. It comes from the society.

26:00.53
Narayan
So yeah I mean again, it's a question of potentially leaders within these agencies or even Policymakers giving you know people a nudge saying that please support these stakes because this will allow us to grow the size of the pie for our own country or our own.

26:08.00
lucie
Um.

26:16.14
lucie
Exactly.

26:20.19
Narayan
Economy at the end right? So that needs some sort of a shift in in thinking about these things and it also needs probably some sort of ah a leader who believes in growing the size of the pie and not just looking at it from their lens of their own organization because from. You know what I see today is that people are very protective about their organizations and their institutions at the end of the day and that's where you know a lot of conflict can come up because they may think that by having other people possibly succeed outside of this organization that somehow the.

26:41.69
lucie
Um, yeah for sure.

26:59.70
Narayan
Reputation of the organization or the legacy of the organization that they belong to is coming down which has been historically the central organization which are possibly always space agencies I don't know if you get this feeling as well.

27:03.14
lucie
To.

27:10.84
lucie
I totally get this feeling I will be back with my story of first back a first day at work imagine all the engineer that ankness 30 years ago Knes was really, you know the ah z space agency in France doing. Superadv advanced scientific project and astrout missions. You antarnes you dedicated your life to build a sophisticated scientific instrument during 10 years for example before moving to the other years you work hard. You part of this family. We do shift during nights so you you have this kind of ah mentality that you're working in something exceptional and then you see that we do less and less big projects and there is more and more competitor that haven't ah. Done their class. You know I'm I'm trying to to to illustrate what people could think they haven't done their ah class. They haven't worked on a big integrated systems that go in space. They haven't done all this mission with international partner to discuss. They haven't worked during nights to ah to look at all the hell parametter of your mission and they just came up. They are 25 coming from uni and saying yeah I'm doing to do that cheaper faster and it's it's 2 world that are that are just um. Not discussing like not a line when you think about it and what people fear within the Agencync is that if we give lots of money to the startup where is the money for our big project and I enter the kness to do ah the next herbble telescope where is. My chance to do that. So I fully agree with this kind of feeling I think it is natural that people are protective for what they they had and what they still want to have and maybe working in a way that we are still doing massive big projects. And that people interested in doing that still get a chance to be part of this ah adventure that could be great.

29:30.48
Narayan
Yeah, and you know of course you've now been a part of this space founders The program that is supporting a lot of young companies here in Europe to you know, raise their capital and grow as a bigger and you know more prominent company that has. Much more customers and so on not just at the early Stages. So What is the basis of having a program like space founders and you know how is it that you believe that there is a need for support for European companies and what kind of gaps that you. You know, foresee filling out through this process.

30:09.73
lucie
Yeah, and this is a very good question because when I first met the space founder team. Ah before walking for them I was thinking why another accelerator incubator there is so many staff that are currently ah. Ah, happening. Do we really need another accelerator for space start-up the answer is yes for several reasons first of all space funder is backed by so the french space agency and the Dr. In germany and the university of Bundesve in Munich so it's mean that what we just. This case this link between knowing the ah in the startup ecosystem and the agency is done via space from their the kness executives they follow space from them. They come to talk to the startup they come to the demo day so they get to know the startup and so they get to understand what else they need and then to. Put it back into the Agencync policy secondly for startep. Ah so it's our first promotion so we are gathering feedback but what they say is that it's always better to have a strict job program targeting and fundraising because. They may have um the same problem in order to attract private investment and when we work. Ah, we are ten ten startup at the time. It's a cohort of 10 startep they discuss with their peers. They discuss with external experts they discuss with. Um, venture capitalist and they they also help each other It's a kind of a community. So ah that they move all together forward. Then once again, we use the kness branding d allow branding to attract private investor when you're a small start app. You have to have 1 person that is almost specialized in giving phone call to put potential so potential vcs and to pitch and to pitch and to pitch here. Basically you have the agency doing the first step for you and gathering like forty private investor at the same place at the same time saying hey we. I've scooted 10 amazing space. Startup. We think that they are going to be the leader of tomorrow please have a look so imagine for a startup you're part of that it means that you you save hours of trying to get the good investor. And pitching and trying to get this first meeting. Ah so this is ah all the reason why I think it's still interesting to have a space founder accelerator maybe in 3 years it won't be necessary anymore and it will be ah on another form you know.

32:56.25
lucie
Currently, we really try to bring value to the startup. It's our main purpose. We are ah founded by ah, public money meaning we don't take equity to the startup. We don't have interest Our only interest is that these startups that we scout they create job. On the european soil that they make money and that they grow so our job is to find out all the mean all the lever all the people to make that happen. But I Agree. You may be in 3 years it's not necessary to do that anymore and I will be very Happy. It means that they don't need us anymore. We have done our job.

33:37.67
Narayan
Yeah I mean it's always an interesting proposition because often I think there are lens that companies use because you know I also run a small company so I can see how you know people would see it from the company's perspective or a young company's perspective that.

33:48.87
lucie
Yes.

33:56.16
Narayan
People are always looking for you know more and more customers and more and more investment as a younger company. But I also think having seen this for about 10 years now that there should be some other interesting things that should be done. You know Beyond all of these things from the space agency and 1 of the things that comes to my mind.

34:10.60
lucie
Over.

34:15.96
Narayan
Over and over is having a trade and investment team in the space agency who are monitoring. Ah you know the companies and the employment that they're creating and the value that they're creating for a particular economy and. You know the tax returns that they have given to that particular economy and then you know you have an internal voice within the agency who is then making a case for either policy changes or investment mechanisms or risk taking or any of this because unfortunately when.

34:44.53
lucie
The.

34:53.90
Narayan
All of these things come from external agencies or external people. It's always comes with a ah grain of salt and it always comes with some skepticism that people are only looking to get more money out of public pockets rather than coming from inside of a organization right. So I think that I haven't really seen this actually being done in many agencies around the world as Well. That people have created a yeah.

35:16.54
lucie
Um, and know we have anes they created the and space economical obammatory I'm trying to translate you know because we speak in french. It's ah led by muriel lafay you can check her on ah on linkedin and it has been created during the first lockdown the two twenty one twenty when we had no idea what was happening and the the idea behind this ah economical observatory was to see the health. Of the industry. Ah so we ask sss startup major lots of questions to gain ah intelligence and to derive indicator on how the industry was coping with ah this ah lockdown problem. So this is how it started and there was a weekly built-in weekly digest with all the information and after the lockdown they decided within knesss that it was a great idea to monitor like ah the entire industry and to. To derive indicator and to really have market analysis in-house. So and this is still published every month there is a very small version that is publicly released with like investment job creation and so on but on the inside of kness. There is a major report of everything that is happening. We also ah use a superconhactor sometimes to get very deep market analysis because at 1 point ah we don't have all the knowledge that there is this thing and it's then brought to the executive team. So this all. Started with the lockdown and with the only idea to say what can we do as an urge to support our industry and our suppliers and so on but it has moved so I fully agree with you. This is something that we we see changing and I'm pretty sure that at ease are doing the same or not. I don't know the people but at Kines follow maria lafay yeah.

37:27.97
Narayan
Um, I'll definitely check her out and I think it's a very interesting initiative I'm glad that you know people are mooing in this direction and I hope we also take the queue in India for for this from a policymaker standpoint again when it comes to.

37:38.28
lucie
Um, no.

37:46.95
Narayan
You know, consolidation of regulatory requirements I am not sure how is this being thought off in in France ah because you know in a country like india today. There is an exercise that is ongoing to consolidate policy not policies but also withtrospect to. Licensing of actors between that is spread out often in 4 different agencies for example in the us. For example, it is fa fcc you know noah and the commerce department for example and I don't know how this is being thought of in France is there any moment towards.

38:10.62
lucie
Ah.

38:24.70
Narayan
Having ah a single window clearance system with a single agency or a single organization looking at licensing and supporting all companies. Whatever be it that they want to do right.

38:38.40
lucie
Unfortunately know that I am aware of I may need to do a little bit of research to look at that and maybe I will come back to you with ah and more answer. But I'm not aware of a wish to have a single policy. Agencyncy I Do believe that is really really linked with the European commission at least for France and that if there is something that need to be Unified. It's working out at the European level. But once again, um, don't have the answer to your question.

39:12.16
Narayan
Right? right? Yeah, no, no, no worries I mean um, it's always good to know because maybe the European you know space companies don't really have this problem of you know, undergoing uncertainty in licensing and so on maybe it's very clear for them.

39:14.61
lucie
So already for that.

39:31.79
Narayan
That how the licensing process works and also because France has you know? ah probably all this this space insurance and all of this already very very well established already.

39:40.80
lucie
Yeah I'm sorry I don't know more I think it's something to ask to the startup I'm pretty sure that they have difficulty to to be compliant and get all the licensing better I don't know.

39:57.44
Narayan
Yeah, definitely I'll some explore this you know with some of the companies I guess in that sense from all of the things that we you know discussed today some ah there are definitely some commonalities as to what we can do in India for example and learn from.

39:57.57
lucie
So much about that topic.

40:14.83
Narayan
Some other things that you guys are doing here in in europe for example, but from what you see today and you've now experienced all the landscape and you're addressing quite a lot of problems that are out there in that sense 1 of the core issues that I see is especially. When it comes to you know like maintaining competition and maintaining a return for taxpayer is very important because I think we may go too much on board in supporting young companies as as governments in. In some cases. The us is I think 1 of the classic examples of this where almost ah all of the all of the companies they stand on the shoulders of u s government demand as startups and are getting tons of money from the defense department and in all of the other agencies that are out there and. There is almost no incentive to do business commercially because there is so much money coming from these agencies that people forget that they can also do commercial stuff at the end so there is a very fine line that when it comes to this and what are your thoughts about.

41:11.40
lucie
Um.

41:30.81
Narayan
How do you actually incentivize people at the beginning of the funnel where they attain some sort of a maturity but you make sure that there is a return for the taxpayer and these companies do not become parasites.

41:33.84
lucie
Um.

41:47.24
Narayan
On Taxpayer money.

41:47.61
lucie
Yes, ah, that's ah that's a tricky question. It's always a question about positioning within the innovation value chain and not being too proactive but being there at a particular point where the agency's report is needed. Thing that you should know and I'm pretty trying the same in India the space ecosystem. Yes, it's growing is rising. There is lots of pleasure. But it's not so big meaning that when I used to be a edge agentt. He is a company that are applying to any grant that is out there. We talk together with ah also public bank of investment. We talk together. Um with all the public organisms that provide founding to startup we as ah at Knes we provide founding to we spot them very quickly and it's our also our role to speak to the founder. Because we are still a small ecosystem and to say hey guy we have seen you on this ah grant this accelerators this incubator this ic from isa. We speak a lot with isa to I think it's time for you guys to find your commercial customer. We don't we are ah neutral meaning we select. There is lots of process to select and a company that will win a contract and it's not based on a view applied to 10 other contracts before so this is something that we don't do there is very objective criteriateria because it's a public money and ah competition. So we have to be. Super cautious about that. However, we take the liti to to call the founders and say it's not going to work our guidance. Our advice. It's really to move to ah find customer. Do you need help for that. Do you need to discuss with some expert. Do you want to be put in relationship with. This particular provider that could be 1 of your customer. So I agree with you but it's a small world. It's known very quickly that you only rely on grants and I think the company doing that will not last for so long. It cannot. We are not in the us where it it flows in fluid flows our public money. It's still super scarce with respect to the ecosystem and at 1 point it doesn't work anymore. So yeah, we have ah to stay at our right place to ah, be here when needed but be a little bit. In the back when not needed when the company progressed and to act as an as a nice ah mentor saying guys. This is not going to work.

44:24.66
Narayan
Yeah, and 1 of the other aspects here is exploitation of like agency to agency level collaboration trickling down to startups or younger companies. This is also another interesting topic because we see for example.

44:37.50
lucie
Um.

44:44.33
Narayan
France is the closest partner for space in India right? So we do a lot of things in space together. A lot of missions together I'm sure that you you know that this french teams coming to India every other month doing something or the other in activities and so on. But.

44:46.19
lucie
Oh.

45:02.72
Narayan
A lot of this is today under the government to government framework that only happens at the agency level right? It doesn't really trickle down to the companies and sometimes it does trickle down to companies on the french side because you know.

45:10.79
lucie
Yep.

45:18.40
Narayan
Chris then involves Thalis or Airbus or some other company to build an instrument or yeah, right? So yeah, how do you see you know potentially using such Frameworks or if it is possible at all because this needs a lot of.

45:20.51
lucie
It is in yes Majors not the small company.

45:37.10
Narayan
You know I guess bureaucracy to to take such an initiative and it may not be even possible in the short term but there is a possibility that.

45:43.80
lucie
There is a possibility I think it could be super interesting when you look at ah at other public and institutions such as ah, bp so is a french public bank bank they have lots of initiative to to work together with other country. At a startup level like meaning they they do a kind I guess of scooting and selection for full of company and they have all this program export program also get to know the ecosystem program and when you look at the website you see constantly like call for and. Idea for Asia for singapore for germany a lot. So I do believe that even if the agency are not doing this job. They could intense and be incentive to other organisms that are specialized to have this. Ah. Startup ecosystem working internationally and say hey there is a space topic. Why do you always bring like food tech company to another country. Can we together build something around space tech you know and once again I think. The agency has to stay at its place now we are not ah we are not meant to be an innovation Start -ups support program. Basically, that's not the idea but there is people out there that do that very well. So let's give them a little bit of.

47:15.80
lucie
Expertise people and little bit of founding and organize this together I think it's totally doable and it's ah it's a matter of a political wish. But I do believe that's it's a great idea and it's doable and it could happen quite in a short timeframe.

47:32.73
Narayan
Yeah let's hope. Ah, you know there is some outcomes that come out of all of this and this is also something that we point to often as well. 1 of the other things that I've seen I've never seen this on the friend side as well and this is something that I see on the indian side as well. But I see the netherlands and germany and a few other countries doing it which is the national pavilion for industry to have its presents together I know that new space factory is doing something like that where they allow you know all the french companies to.

47:58.53
lucie
Um.

48:10.22
Narayan
Come together and stay in 1 booth and share costs so that you know they can market themselves at a lower cost level. We don't see that happening in India yet. But you know those are very interesting ways of helping and supporting small companies.

48:14.62
lucie
So. I agree I agree. Ah, we've seen so there is new space factory there is also alliance new space something like that in France and also a consortium called yes for lobbying because it's a like. The industry we need lobbying to to be visible and it's first of all I just ah learned Yesterday that this is a professional job in europe like people are professional lobbyists for space like I had no idea. But basically if you're a small company. You're already super busy lacking of manpower to do your stuff. You don't have time to go to to advocate for whatever you're doing so we have seen alliance for marketing ah to share marketing costs to be a little bit more visible in the international scene and to share lobbyists. Ah, but I agree with you. We could be inspired by ah germany and ne delan that done that at a much larger scale and it's much more structural ah to to have something that is ah more powerful so I'm in line with this and ah. Let's see how it will evolve in the next future

49:35.53
Narayan
Great. So I would like to let's say end this particular podcast by having some interesting thoughts about the future on how you see this as well from what you see Today. Can you tell me. Ah, rough number of order of magnitude of startups that are involved in space related activities in europe and how much percentage of that is in France I mean it could be a rough guess as well. I know it's a very difficult question. Um, yeah, and also you know yeah.

50:04.79
lucie
That's a very difficult question I should have taken notes and yeah, so what I know ah in terms of a rough number.

50:10.23
Narayan
And you know how do you see this ah in the next you know, 5 to 10 years

50:19.39
lucie
I have no idea I would guess 1000 all over europe so does that make sense. But what I've seen recently in the news that the 2 most dynamic countries in terms of news space startup are germany and we have seen in the news recently a lot of ah isarios space minnry cliffle aos space I just want you know this massive consortium ah from the new constellation from the european commission we see mine ery going public. They are constantly in the news and I think there is very strong ecosystem in germany. Second country that I see a lot is ah england I don't know if you share my ah my point of view but when you so you know I monitor all this trend and I have ah lots of ah articles that's come every day to to understand what's happening and I see that there is definitely something going on. In ah in the yeah uk ah, it's something that I've also experienced when I was working at the agency ah through the england as the yeah uk delegation national league elegation super dynamic. I've met a lot ah libby Jackson we used to work together in the international space station um a teams long time ago. She is really really into commercialization application. New new news space and so on so I see ah as ah, a kind of. Polar ecosystem with ah germany and northern country like Sweden finland there's lots of things going on netherlands that are walking in 1 path and then you have french spain is also ah quite ah, quite interesting. Italy has interesting company but it's it's very. When you look at it I will be back with ah the story of the european commission granting 2 consortium for this feasibility study for the constellation of ah of ah secure and quick. Ah communication. When you look at the consoltium. You really see this 2 polar ah ecosystem you have 1 led by the german with Northern europe companies german company. Of course there is some other thing but you really see that. And 1 led by the french with the Unseen lab loftarital and ah reconsuled I think that is more towards western europe not western europe but western part of europe so what I fear.

52:55.74
lucie
But once again, it's I may be wrong is that in the near future yes there will be a growing ecosystem not of new player and so on but we will still have this 2 parallel ecosystem that are competing with with them themselves so french I'm back with space from their space from that is a french german. Ah program and basically what we try. Also it's to make all these people work together. Not only with the people you know because they live in Munich and in Belin or they live in paris and in Toullos you know to have this thing so my um tendency for the future maybe to be more united and not. Split ser tendency that I see a lot is a micro launchuncher there so much going on in the launcher world. There is so much company so many companies so many things will the market be saturated is there another place for Micro launchcher. That's a question. Absolutely not able to answer. But it's something to monitor for the future sound big tendency is and space data marketplace I believe that there's so many player into geo intelligence space that ah analysis and decato and so on that they. Will be or should be a kind of ecosystem. Ah that is safe that has a proper governance to exchange and market ah space data and space services that are attached to the data. So this is what I I won't say predict with what I think is going to happen that it's moving so fast that at the end I have no idea.

54:38.42
Narayan
Yeah, we should revisit this conversation in a few years and then see what happened.

54:42.51
lucie
See absolutely nothing. It will be the Rays of inaubisami and spaceurvalillance you know something ah nothing with what I just said no, it's I would love to hear your point of view on that.

54:56.91
Narayan
Yeah, we have to wait and watch I guess because you know at the end of the day we in space are governed by what happens in markets outside of space primarily and you know the economic situation outside of space is getting trickier by the day.

55:04.86
lucie
Yes.

55:13.32
Narayan
And I'm sure that that's going to have a deep impact in the next you know 12 to eighteen months or so on what happens in space and I guess it's a question of how many companies can then make it through all of that and survive and and build a business that actually sustains.

55:23.13
lucie
Um, do you think it's going to be a bubble.

55:30.74
Narayan
I mean we are in many places in a bubble there are I don't know 85 companies building trusters and 1 hundred and eighty companies building launchers and you know, ah for sure there are small bubbles in the industry in different places and different technologies.

55:36.90
lucie
Um.

55:49.24
Narayan
And it's a question of is there enough demand for a lot of these things and that connects backs to consumers or connects backs to businesses on the ground and are using all of these but I think those are the questions that will be answered in the next like 3 to 5 years

56:02.89
lucie
Um, well let's meet again in 3 to 5 years to see what happened.

56:07.72
Narayan
Yeah, absolutely so Lucy. Thank you so much for taking the time. It's been a very you know, enthusiastic conversation for me to learn about a lot of your perspective. It also kind of gives me some sort of validation for some of my own thoughts with respect to India as well.

56:23.56
lucie
Um.

56:27.29
Narayan
And it's very interesting to see the parallels to you know to have in 1 place or the other and then there are of course in many aspects things are much ahead in europe and the opportunity and the maturity available in terms of support for companies here in europe is is a little bit ahead in what we have in India but.

56:28.32
lucie
Um.

56:47.41
Narayan
It's also I think will be interesting to see what is happening as well because for me I think a lot of the companies in India have to run with a cockroach mentality because they have no support from the public instruments and so you either make it commercially or you die so there will be 2 choices.

57:02.96
lucie
Yeah, but it's as you say it. It's when you make it you really make it so it's it's also ah, it's another ecosystem. It's another way to work I'm not saying that 1 is better than another I think it's 2 different things. But.

57:06.17
Narayan
There's no middle ground.

57:22.60
lucie
Here At least. You don't fall into the pitfall to be full of grant and then has no convention to Action. So at the end. It's maybe more difficult at the beginning and then you you really had super strong and company. Of course there is maybe something in the middle too. To work like having a little bit more of support at the beginning but then be less um in the in the company. Um, ah, gross than what we do here in Europe. So. There is a trade-off between the 2 approach to do.

58:00.40
Narayan
Yeah, absolutely. So thank you again for taking the time and I wish you know the 2022 to be prosperous and I hope all your efforts with space, pounders and others take off in a big way and yeah, good luck with all of that.

58:14.86
lucie
Thank you and likewise.