Newly founded venture capital provider Einstein Industries Ventures says it will invest EUR 300 million in promising young German New Space companies. The fund made the announcement at the ongoing ILA Aerospace Trade Fair in Berlin.

Founders include aerospace and business veterans. The fund is being supported by Axel Springer hy, which is associated with the German media colossus of that name.

The fund is targeted at young companies involved in “downstream,” the use of data collected in space for B2B customers, including insurers, financial markets, commodities brokers, agrarian producers and logistics professionals.

“There’s hardly a sector that will be able to do without this sort of value creation,” said General Partner Hans Steininger in Einstein Industries Ventures’ press release announcing the fund. “Low earth orbit will be for the economy what the smartphone is for the software industry: a platform where groundbreaking applications grow.”

A number of German new space companies have attracted interest from international investors in recent years, but critics say the industry has been limited by the lack of domestic venture capital. Conservative estimates that the global New Space market could be worth USD 926 billion by 2040.