UP42 is now an official member of the Federation of German Industries (Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie e.V. or “BDI”) as part of the BDI NewSpace Initiative. The company joins the program along with other local start-ups, space companies, associations, suppliers, and more traditional industries to foster innovation and economic growth through the space industry.
The BDI NewSpace initiative stems from the heightened commercialization of space travel. From 2017 to 2018, the downstream segment has seen an increase of 136% in demand growth globally. Only in Germany, 76% of NewSpace companies have non-space businesses as customers, propelling the country at the forefront of all areas in the upstream and downstream sectors.
As a critical component of German industrialization and socio-economic development globally, New Space acts as a catalyst for innovation in the sustainability sector, laying the foundation for solving some of our world’s greatest challenges. With the rise of innovative technologies such as autonomous driving, IoT, connectivity, Industry 4.0 and data-based business models, the BDI NewSpace initiative is set to play a pivotal role in German industrial development across other strong sectors, namely automotive, energy, agribusiness and digital economy.
A subsidiary of Airbus, UP42 is a flexible platform that provides the building blocks for geospatial companies to scale their products and businesses faster, further, and cost-effectively. The UP42 marketplace currently contains over 160 products from more than 50 of the world’s leading geospatial organizations, regularly used in various applications, from vegetation management to urban monitoring to risk assessment. UP42 technical experts are available to assist customers in selecting the best data set to meet the needs of each specific application. These experts can also help task a satellite for new image acquisition or query the archive to obtain existing imagery.
As an official member of the BDI NewSpace initiative, UP42 joins other German small and medium-sized businesses on a mission to lower entry barriers to the Space industry by democratizing access to geospatial data and analytics for the benefit of all of its customers.
“We could not be more excited about this growing trend and the key role Space plays for the advancement of the German economy,” said UP42 CEO, Sean Wiid. “Joining the BDI NewSpace Initiative perfectly aligns with UP42’s collaborative approach to the space ecosystem and our core purpose to make an impact on society, the economy, and the environment through geospatial technology.”
"A dynamic NewSpace ecosystem has emerged in Germany in recent years," said the BDI NewSpace initiative's Managing Director, Matthias Wachter. "Our members are united by a spirit of optimism and the conviction that NewSpace will make our country more digitally advanced, greener and ever innovative."