The Creative Destruction Lab Oxford hosted a unique meeting featuring 30 promising space start-ups, helping put Europe at the forefront of space exploration.
The event, held in March at the Saïd Business School in Oxford, was a unique meeting that saw CDL-Oxford bring together a global mentor community of astronauts, entrepreneurs, investors, and scientists.
A key part of the mentoring event was to foster the rapid commercialisation of space technologies at a time when the European Space Agency is calling for investment in infrastructure to allow for the development of domestic European space launch capabilities.
As a result, Mentors in attendance across the two-day event included Colonel Chris Hadfield, Anousheh Ansari, Luca Rossettini (CEO and founder at D-Orbit and expert at the Space Advisory Group of the European Commission), and Theresa Condor (Space Entrepreneur and COO of Spire Global Inc.).
CDL-Oxford’s Director, Sarah Barratt Ball, said, “Two-thirds of our entire MBA cohort apply every year to be part of the programme, even though they get no academic credit for being part of CDL. They realise that participating in the Creative Destruction Lab programme and engaging in consulting projects related to business narrative with start-up ventures can only enrich their entrepreneurial skill set and experience.”
CDL’s space programme aims to aid the rapid commercialisation of space technologies. As a result, start-ups work alongside mentors to sharpen objectives, raise capital, build networks and engage with experts working on the frontiers of space research.
To date, 58 companies have graduated from CDL and continue to scale within the space industry, including Pixxel, Benchmark Space Systems and Lumi Space.