Nasa Ventures

Nasa Ventures finances pre-seed and seed-stage European startups working with space-based data, Earth observation, satellite communications, and autonomous systems like drones and inspection robots. The name comes from the Dutch word 'nasa,' meaning a carrying basket — a reference to technologies that collect and transport data from orbit or remote environments — not the US space agency. The firm was founded in Amsterdam in 2013 by Arjan van den Born and Sabrina van der Sloot, and it writes initial checks between €200,000 and €1.5 million.

Managing Partner Arjan van den Born leads the firm's investment activity, supported by Partner Sabrina van der Sloot. Van den Born had prior experience as a venture partner and tech executive before launching the firm. The partnership structure appears tight, with no publicly disclosed investment committee beyond the two named partners (per the firm's official communications).

The firm makes direct equity investments only — it does not operate as a fund-of-funds or write checks into other VC vehicles. Nasa Ventures co-invests alongside other European seed funds and occasionally alongside startups graduating from ESA Business Incubation Centres, but all capital goes directly into portfolio companies.

Nasa Ventures has no formal structural relationship with the European Space Agency, but it operates in close thematic proximity. Several portfolio companies have ESA backing or incubation history, and Managing Partner Arjan van den Born has described the firm's role as bridging ESA-funded research prototypes to commercially viable venture-backed businesses. The firm leverages technical due-diligence networks within the European space ecosystem without institutional affiliation.

The firm avoids pure SaaS companies that do not originate their own data from space-based sensors, autonomous vehicles, or edge devices operating outside conventional IT infrastructure. It also avoids consumer internet and enterprise tools that merely repackage third-party data. This exclusion creates a portfolio that coheres around data-provenance underwriting rather than broad sector momentum.