Space Ventures Investors

Founding Partners Simon Drake and Kevin Mac Gowan run the firm. Drake acts as Managing Director, handling day-to-day portfolio monitoring, partnership building, and joint-venture oversight, while Mac Gowan leads the network across Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and France. Non-Executive Director Thomas Lazaridis, formerly of Thales Alenia Space, provides additional strategic and commercial input.

SVI sources through a proprietary research tool called the Strategic Space Value Chain, which maps and monitors the growth of space verticals. The team has conducted due diligence on hundreds of space startups over a decade and leverages deep networks in both European and US space ecosystems. The firm also uses one-on-one conversations, surveys, and feedback from space and tech investors to identify emerging opportunities.

No. SVI is a shareholder company, not a closed-end fund. Founders manage the capital directly with one-to-one shareholder contact. The model allows SVI to incubate and co-found businesses, hold them without fixed exit timelines, and allocate capital with more flexibility than a traditional 10-year fund structure.

SVI focuses on early-stage seed and startup rounds, as well as growth-stage investments, and also pursues spin-offs and divestitures. The firm actively incubates and co-founds companies, and structures joint ventures — such as the Space Commodities Exchange and Lunar Resources Registry — to build infrastructure and resource-focused ventures alongside its equity portfolio.

The firm concentrates on three core verticals: operational earth observation, emerging launch solutions, and lunar resources, including lunar landers and space commodities. Beyond its current portfolio, SVI is actively tracking and researching infrastructure-level operations such as space-based solar power, orbital servicing, space debris prevention, and orbiting data centres.

The Lunar Resources Registry is an SVI-run initiative providing a free online map of lunar landings. It supports the firm's advocacy for increased government and agency spending on space exploration and resources, while simultaneously building a proprietary data asset that can inform investment and partnership decisions in lunar-resource ventures.

European Space Ventures AG was formed in 2023 by the founders of Space Ventures Investors as an expansion vehicle. Simon Drake serves as CEO of the new entity, which complements SVI's existing platform and extends its capacity to fund and develop space-focused businesses across Europe.