Hélène Huby: Europe's answer to Elon Musk in the space race

While America associates the space business with Elon Musk, the name Hélène Huby is being heard ever more loudly in Europe — the founder of the Munich-based startup The Exploration Company, which in the space of two weeks raised 9.3 billion crowns from investors and secured an 18.4-billion-crown contract from the European Space Agency to resupply the ISS.

The success story began with a failure. Last summer, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried into orbit the Mission Possible capsule developed by Huby's company. The capsule survived re-entry, but its parachutes failed to deploy, and it crashed into the Pacific Ocean along with its cargo — including the ashes of 166 people sent into orbit by the American firm Celestis, which arranges space funerals. At the time, it seemed like the end for The Exploration Company.

Fifteen months later, the startup is one of the most interesting names in Europe's space industry. Its $450 million (around 9.3 billion crowns) Series C round was led by the American fund Bessemer Venture Partners, London's Atomico and the Scaleup Europe fund run by Sweden's EQT, joined by existing shareholders Balderton and Plural. It is the largest Series C round in the history of European space companies and the biggest investment ever made in an EU company founded and led by a woman. In total, the startup has now raised nearly $700 million.

The second piece of news is the ESA contract. For 760 million euros (around 18.4 billion crowns), under the ALADDIN programme, the company must provide autonomous resupply of the International Space Station: its capsule is to dock with the ISS no later than mid-2029. Europe once had its own cargo system — the automated ATV modules, which reached the ISS five times between 2008 and 2014 — but the programme was shut down, and the continent has depended on the Americans and Russians ever since, much as it has with satellite launches, where delays to the Ariane 6 rocket have forced the EU to turn to Musk's services. “Europe cannot rent its access to space,” Alex Ferrara of Bessemer commented on the situation.

Yet Huby herself is nothing like a typical rocket engineer or startup founder. The 49-year-old Frenchwoman graduated from the country's most prestigious institutions: the elite École Normale Supérieure, the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po), and the École Nationale d'Administration — the training ground for French ministers and presidents. She began her career at the consultancy FaberNovel and, by her own account, ended up in the space industry “by accident” — when her husband moved for work to Bremen in Germany, she joined Airbus Defence & Space in 2013.

Over eight years at the transnational group, she rose to vice president, responsible for the European Service Module for NASA's Orion capsule, which is being used to prepare for the return of humans to the Moon. She also worked at Ariane Group, the Airbus-Safran joint venture that builds Europe's Ariane rockets. Alongside her career, she plays the cello, enjoys tennis, skis, and is raising four children.

She was also among the founders of the Karman Project, a non-profit organisation bringing together people from the space industry worldwide, and launched Urania Ventures, an investment firm specialising in deep tech. Gradually, she became one of the most influential figures in Europe's space business.

While at Airbus, Huby came to a realisation: Europe has the talent and skills to achieve outstanding results, but it lags behind the United States in ambition. So in 2021 she quit and founded The Exploration Company. “If you look at it rationally, it was a crazy decision. But it comes down to what you want to achieve in life,” she admitted in an interview with the investment fund EQT Ventures.

The company was officially launched in the summer of 2021 and received its first 5 million euros that same autumn. A Series A round of 40.5 million euros followed in February 2023, and another substantial tranche came in November 2024, laying the groundwork for its current rapid growth.