French startup Leanspace raised a 6 million euro ($6.35 million) seed round to further its mission to simplify space software. European VC firm Karista led the round, along with 42CAP. French innovation agency Bpifrance participated as well, bringing Leanspace’s total funding to 8.5 million euros ($9 million).  Leanspace offers a collection of space-specific cloud services […]
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Space Software Startup Leanspace Raises $6M Seed Round

Illkirch-Graffenstaden, France (Leanspace PR) — Leanspace, the company building the digital infrastructure of the space industry, is today announcing a major milestone in its development with the closing of an oversubscribed Seed financing round of €6m ($6.4m). The funding will be used to scale up Leanspace’s cloud services platform, and was led by Karista and 42CAP, with complementary non-dilutive financing from Bpifrance. The new investors join leading space organizations already backing Leanspace, like Seraphim Space, the International Space University and strategic business angels. The commercialization of the space industry and the ‘NewSpace’ paradigm have complexified, rather than simplified, the management of space missions. On top of the legacy requirements we’ve seen for decades: reliability, trust and bespoke developments, space programmes of today come with new needs: a drastic increase in agility and reduction of costs. These new drivers call for new solutions: new software and processes that can truly leverage the cloud and digital engineering technologies. But space organizations face extreme challenges in adopting them. New entrants need to set up entire software infrastructures from scratch and lack the resources, time and know-how to do so. Established organizations are prisoners of complex legacy systems and of the risks of transforming them. Leanspace has been founded to make this transition easier, with the goal of enabling the digital transformation of space organizations. Guillaume Tanier, co-founder & CEO of Leanspace, said: “I’ve spent the last decade building and selling space software. The truth is: 80% is always the same, but people keep rebuilding their systems from scratch, stitching disparate technologies together and reinventing the wheel. In the NewSpace era, it does not make sense anymore. With my co-founders, we wanted to build this ‘80%’ once and make it available to every space player in an easy to use, transparent model, so that they can quickly build powerful, cloud-native space software.”
The platform – the exact term is ‘Platform-as-a-Service’ – offers a collection of space-specific cloud services that can be used via API, directly in the customer’s applications. Customers use Leanspace as an integration platform: they can quickly set up ground segments that scale easily and where data can flow, across systems and teams. They also use it as an innovation platform: they can develop their own systems, with their own methods, to answer their own, specific use case. Incorporated in 2020 in Strasbourg, France, by an international team (the founders are French, Spanish, Canadian, and Indian) the company has grown to 25 employees in 2 years, and already works with a dozen space customers, ranging from satellite operators for earth observation, in-orbit services and IoT, to launcher companies and software integrators. This €6m Seed round, led by Karista and 42CAP and complemented by Bpifrance, brings Leanspace’s total funding to €8.5m since its inception. Karista is a major European VC firm based in Paris and invested via its new space fund CosmiCapital, backed by the French Space Agency (CNES). 42CAP is a Munich-based VC firm with a world-class expertise in B2B software companies and SaaS platforms. Bpifrance is the French agency for innovation, delivering financial and technical support to high-potential, innovative ventures. Michaël Thomas, Investment Director and Yvan-Michel Ehkirch, Managing Partner at Karista said: “We were won by the team’s unique vision, complementarity and understanding of what it is to build a global venture. With such a mindset next to a solid technology, fleet management can now be disrupted in the whole NewSpace ecosystem and beyond within many industry verticals. Leanspace’s platform is answering one of the biggest challenges of NewSpace today, meaning the capacity to scale up fast ground infrastructures – one of the current market’s bottlenecks – in order to support the huge market growth”. Julian von Fischer, Partner at 42CAP said: “We have been analyzing the SpaceTech market for quite a while and finally found what we were looking for in Leanspace: a founding team with deep domain expertise, understanding the problems of the industry and a product which has the potential to redefine how software is used in space in the future. We believe that Leanspace has the capability to accelerate the paradigm shift happening in the market and become a core part of the future software stack of space companies. We are thankful to now be a small part of this journey.”
Karista and 42CAP join an existing group of world-class space organisations in supporting Leanspace’s vision: Seraphim Space, global leader in SpaceTech investment, from whose accelerator Leanspace graduated in late 2021; the International Space University (ISU), #1 space education provider in the world, which believed in Leanspace from the beginning and from which 2 founders are alumni; the Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), network of tier 1 space experts and entrepreneurs running an acceleration programme for massively scalable tech companies, which Leanspace just graduated from; and Bpifrance, which has been supporting Leanspace’s growth since its founding. This new investment will enable the company to scale up its offerings, by bringing additional cloud services, putting in place a mature service delivery model, and building integrations with strategic partners. “Looking ahead, our ambition is to become the world leader in digital space infrastructures. We want to see hundreds of space missions, diverse in size and use cases, running on cloud-native, collaborative software ecosystems powered by the Leanspace platform!” says Guillaume Tanier. “It’s the only way to get the economies of scale needed to make the new space economy a reality”. About Karista
Karista is a Venture Capital firm investing in early-stage companies in France & Europe, especially in the fields of Digital, DeepTech, Healthcare and SpaceTech. Karista has financed ventures such as Sequans Communication (NYSE Listed SQNS), Nanobiotix (Nasdaq Listed NBTX) or Comitéo (sold to Natixis). Since its inception in 2001, Karista has supported more than 100 companies in Europe and generates a sustainable performance for its investors. CosmiCapital, Karista’s SpaceTech fund, invests in the Space economy currently boosted by the growing amount of data from satellites. As a strategic partner to entrepreneurs, the Karista team is recognized for its complementary skills and unique network.

Leanspace Raises a €6m Seed Round to Digitalize the Space Industry via the Cloud

Using tech to tackle taboo men’s health issues, Kranus Health has just picked up more than €6 million for its digital ‘viagra’ therapy, treating men’s health problems with a digital and holistic approach. Having developed a digital treatment for erectile dysfunction, that doesn’t require any pills, Kranus Health has pocketed more than €6 million in Series A funding. While Viagra has been a globally recognised treatment for years now and was one of the most popular prescription uptakes of any medication, Kranus Health is hoping to bring a new option to the market with even more success. And they’re well on their way –  the launch has been regarded as one of the most successful for a digital therapeutic in Germany. The funding was led by French health care investor Karista and Austria-based Family Office Peak Pride. All existing shareholders, including HTGF and A Round Capital, followed up with significant further investments. The team also gained investment from renowned business angels such as Saarbruecker21 and Florian Brand, the founder and CEO of atai Life Sciences. Founded in 2020, Kranus Health is on a mission to bring solutions and treatments to men’s health issues that are less widely talked about and even seen as taboo. In January 2022, the health tech startup launched the potency app, Kranus Edera and within months had issued thousands of prescriptions. The Munich and Berlin-based platform offers a holistic and digital approach to treating erectile dysfunction, a health issue that impacts more men than one may assume. The app provides a fully reimbursable treatment option for millions of men affected by erectile dysfunction and is already being prescribed by hundreds of urologists across Germany. The digital therapeutic can be prescribed in addition to medication or as a stand-alone therapy, providing patients with long-term prospects for recovery. The treatment is based on digital coaching that comprises a 12-week therapy consisting of pelvic floor training, physical therapy exercises, cardiovascular endurance training, mindfulness and body awareness exercises, as well as sexual therapy exercises. In addition, patients receive daily background knowledge to improve their understanding of the underlying principles of erectile function and the influence of lifestyle factors, such as nutrition or stress. Taking on the wide remit of men’s health, the startup is developing digital therapies for many widespread medical conditions. As explained by the founder and co-CEO, Thilo Kleinschmidt: “At Kranus Health, we break taboos and solve men’s health issues that no one talks about.” 
To this end, there are many widespread conditions to focus on. Erectile dysfunction, which impacts every third male, is the primary focus, alongside incontinence, which impact 20% of men over 60, as well as prostate enlargement (BPH), which is thought to affect every second man over 50 years. The Kranus Health team, which includes an interdisciplinary makeup of experts, are using technology to make health care provision more accessible and less taboo. Thilo added: “There is a great deal of potential in treatment backed by digital technology. We are improving patient care and allowing specialists to prescribe therapies that are in line with medical guidelines.”
The new funding will be used for further clinical research to develop additional digital therapies. A large randomized, controlled trial (RCT) on the efficacy of treatment with Kranus Edera app is being conducted this year with the university teaching hospital in Münster (Universitätsklinikum Münster). The company aims to modernize the approach to men’s intimate health issues and will contribute to normalizing communication about them. In addition, the team, with the existing headcount of 50, is set to be doubled to more than 100 members of staff. Baudouin Hue, partner at Karista, commented: “Karista’s substantial investment into Kranus Health matches the companies impressive execution in a very short time, recording the most successful digital therapeutic (DiGA) launch, as well as the potential to address large unmet medical needs affecting hundreds of million of men worldwide.”
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German startup Kranus Health picks up over €6 million to digitise men’s health and break down barriers

Implicity , a Cambridge, MA-based provider of a remote patient monitoring and cardiac data management solutions, raised $23M in Series A funding. The round was led by Crédit Mutuel Innovation and Bpifrance, with participation from BNP Paribas Development, Serena, XAnge and Karista. The company intends to use the funds to:
Increase the company’s market presence in the US and support expansion into new markets           
Develop additional medical device software to strengthen the technological leadership of the company
Led by CEO Dr. Arnaud Rosier, Implicity is a software company that provides a universal cardiac remote monitoring and research platform to clinics and service companies. Its AI-based technology and cardiac data management solutions enable healthcare professionals around the world to have a more holistic approach to caring for cardiac patients. This new funding comes months after the company received FDA clearance for a novel AI algorithm that analyzes ECG episodes from Implantable Loop Recorders (ILRs). IMPLICITY® covers more than 60,000 patients in 100 medical facilities across the United States and Europe. FinSMEs

Implicity Raises $23M in Series A Funding

PARIS (CNES PR) — Karista announces the first closing of CosmiCapital, its venture capital fund initiated by CNES and entirely dedicated to NewSpace. Subscribed in particular by CNES, initiator of the fund, and the National Seed Fund 2 (FNA 2), managed on behalf of the State by Bpifrance, within the framework of the Future Investments Program (PIA), the fund will have an investment capacity of 38 million euros [US $43.9 million] to fulfill its main objective: take advantage of the unprecedented acceleration of the space economy and invest in French and European technology start-ups in the sector. With this closing, Karista completes its range of funds to become a European multi-fund venture management platform. CosmiCapital, Karista’s Newspace fund initiated by CNES, announces its first closing. Supported by CNES and FNA 2, managed on behalf of the State by Bpifrance within the PIA framework, in partnership with ESA (European Space Agency), the fund will invest in young French and European companies that develop solutions linked to the NewSpace revolution. Aiming at a target of 70 million euros [US $80.8 million] in 2022, Karista’s new vehicle is an innovation capital fund intended to finance start-ups via investments ranging from 1 to 5 million euros [US $1.2 to $5.8 million] in seed/series A positioning has made it possible to bring together leading institutional underwriters as well as manufacturers in the field. A European openness, a multi-sector ambition
With the proliferation of satellite constellations and as a corollary the production of data from space, this new sector induces an economic revolution equivalent to that of the Internet in the 1990s. Now, Newspace sees the emergence of young people. agile players and carriers of disruptive technologies. CosmiCapital, Karista’s Newspace fund, wishes to take advantage of this new economy in very strong growth by positioning itself mainly in the Downstream, which brings together all the technologies making it possible to exploit the data coming from the many satellites in orbit but also in the Upstream which brings together all the industrial technologies to design, manufacture and launch satellites. CosmiCapital will invest in particular in start-ups that rely on the explosion of available data to build innovative solutions for the world of tomorrow, having an impact in many sectors of the economy (insurance, finance, agriculture, energy, transport, environment, telecommunications, security, etc.). Present in France, the fund’ management team is made up of 8 investors and is supported by experienced Venture Partners in the digital and space sector based in Germany and Great Britain. CNES supports the development of the NewSpace ecosystem
In recent years, space has no longer been reduced to state space agencies and historical industrialists. Through a service offering for start-ups that is unique in Europe and with little equivalent at the global level, CNES and its partners now support the creation of one start-up per week in France in the space sector. On the occasion of this closing, Philippe Baptiste, CEO of CNES, declared: “We are proud to participate in the creation of the first French NewSpace fund with a European vocation. With CosmiCapital, its team of experienced investors and its extensive ecosystem of partners, NewSpace will have at its disposal a unique tool to support future European space unicorns in their growth and generate value.”
Karista deploys its European multi-fund venture management platform
Founded in 2001, Karista is an independent Venture Capital company specializing in early stage, in the areas of Digital, DeepTech, Health and Newspace. For two years, it has been showing its ambition to always go further in supporting seed and series A for innovative companies and is projecting itself internationally. “We are pleased to announce this first closing which proves both the growing interest of subscribers in this rapidly expanding market and also the confidence they place in our investment team. By joining us in this adventure, they participate in the dynamism of the European economy driven by young innovative companies. Finally, with this closing, Karista becomes a true European multi-fund venture platform supplementing its range of specialized funds,” adds Olivier Dubuisson, President of Karista. “CosmiCapital’s strategy of bringing out French and European Newspace champions with a dedicated innovation capital fund is fully in line with the ambitions of FNA and Bpifrance: supporting the growth of start-ups with high potential, carriers of innovation of rupture. The space industry, in the process of changing towards a ‘Space as a Service’ model, offers our start-ups real opportunities to seize today. We are pleased to partner with Karista, which is deploying a new investment solution capable of specifically addressing digital and space issues in the early-stage segment and thus enabling our young shoots to position themselves in the booming NewSpace market,” said Nicolas Dufourcq, CEO of Bpifrance. About Karista
Karista, is an independent Venture Capital company specializing in early-stage, particularly in the fields of digital, deep tech and health. Since its creation in 2001, the company has supported more than 90 companies in Europe and generates sustainable performance for its investors. Karista notably financed the companies Sequans Communication (NYSE Listed SQNS) Nanobiotix (Nasdaq Listed NBTX), Comitéo (sold to Natixis). A strategic partner of entrepreneurs, the Karista team is recognized for its complementarity and its network. www.karista.vc
About CNES
CNES (Center National d’Études Spatiales) is the public establishment responsible for proposing French space policy to the Government and implementing it within Europe. It designs and places satellites in orbit and invents the space systems of tomorrow; it promotes the emergence of new services that are useful on a daily basis. CNES, created in 1961, is at the origin of major space projects, launchers and satellites and is the industry’s natural interlocutor to push innovation. CNES has nearly 2,500 employees, women and men passionate about this space which opens up infinite, innovative fields of application and intervenes in five areas of intervention: Ariane, sciences, observation, telecommunications, defense. CNES is a major player in technological innovation, economic development and industrial policy in France. It also forges scientific partnerships and is involved in numerous international cooperation. France, represented by CNES, is one of the main contributors to the European Space Agency (ESA). www.cnes.fr
About the Investments for the Future Program (PIA)
Committed for 10 years and managed by the General Secretariat for Investment with the Prime Minister, the PIA finances innovative projects, contributing to the transformation of the country, sustainable growth and creating the jobs of tomorrow. From the emergence of an idea to the dissemination of a new product or service, the PIA supports the entire innovation life cycle, between public and private sectors, alongside economic, academic, regional and other partners. Europeans. These investments are based on a demanding doctrine, open selective procedures, and principles of co-financing or returns on investment for the State. The fourth PIA (PIA4) has €20 billion [US $23.1 billion] in commitments over the period 2021-2025, of which €11 billion [US $12.7 billion] will help support innovative projects under the France Relance plan. The PIA will continue to support innovation, in all its forms, over the long term, so that our country strengthens its positions in sectors of the future, serving competitiveness, ecological transition, and the independence of our economy and our organizations. More information on: www.gouvernement.fr/secretariat-general-pour-l-investment-sgpi @SGPI_avenir
About Bpifrance
Bpifrance equity investments are made by Bpifrance Investissement. Bpifrance finances companies – at each stage of their development – with credit, guarantees and equity. Bpifrance supports them in their innovation projects and internationally. Bpifrance also now ensures their export activity through a wide range of products. Consulting, university, networking and acceleration program for startups, SMEs and mid-cap companies are also part of the offer provided to entrepreneurs. Thanks to Bpifrance and its 48 regional offices, entrepreneurs benefit from a close, unique and efficient interlocutor to support them in facing their challenges.

Karista’s NewSpace Fund, CosmiCapital, Closes with 38 Million Euros with CNES and Bpifrance Via FNA 2

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