Starburst expands into India – will it involve Israeli aerospace tech?

In business since 2013, the aerospace accelerator is very much interested in advancing humanity’s reach to space.

By HAGAY HACOHEN
Starburst’s global team visiting one of the firm’s companies based at Santa Monica Airport last year. (photo credit: Courtesy)
Starburst’s global team visiting one of the firm’s companies based at Santa Monica Airport last year.
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Aerospace accelerator Starburst will expand its operations in India starting in Mumbai, where it will open a platform to promote local talents and to connect Indian companies in the field to international contractors, a press release for the company reported on Thursday.
With branches in Tel Aviv, Paris and Los Angeles, Starburst locates roughly 2,000 start-ups in the field of space and aviation every year. It has connections with the US Air Force, Israel Aerospace Industries and Lufthansa Technik, among others.
So far, Starburst invested in Momentus, which offers a satellite “shunting service” to cheaply move satellites already in space to their desired locations in orbit. The incubator has also invested in Red6, which offers augmented-reality training for fighter pilots, greatly reducing costs for armies.
In Israel, Starburst has invested in C4 Systems, which offers augmented reality enhancements to first-aid response crews.
“For us, it’s time we enter a new market – and we want to help the Indian aerospace industry to outgrow, and reach other markets, too,” Starburst CEO Francois Chopard told The Jerusalem Post.
Starburst India CEO Abhinav Anuket will be in charge of the expansion. In addition to Mumbai, Starburst will also operate in Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad.
In business since 2013, the aerospace accelerator intends to focus on advancing humanity’s reach into space.
In a September interview with Startup Vision TV, Chopard said: “Space, very soon, will be your new neighborhood,” supporting the idea of putting more astronauts in lower orbit.
“I think we will have another space station in addition to the International Space Station, as there are things we could produce in space,” he told the Post. He offered an example of fiber-optics that, in zero gravity, would be of higher quality, or human skin, that could grow “in all directions” under such conditions.
Closer to the ground, he said: “People are becoming more and more interested in supersonic passenger planes,” and pointed to Colorado-based start-up Boom, that has announced it will present its XB-1 model on October 10.
“I think that very soon, we will be able to go from Paris to Tokyo in one hour,” he said, “there is always interest in that sort of thing.”