In a recent IEEE list of start-ups to watch in the EO domain, only 1 of the 9 ventures is based in Europe; Dauria Aerospace is based in Munich and whose business model is really quite traditional even if executed in a new way. I have remarked on many occasions recently concerning the lack of private European initiatives like Skybox Imaging, PlanetIQ and several others in the US and strongly regretted that Europe cannot develop more business initiatives. Only SSTL (now part of Airbus) and their services subsidiary DMCI have made a significant impact with a different business mode. l feel that this lack of European ventures is a result of a number of factors in the European environment (one of which is difficulty in accessing finance) and in the recent EC conference on Big Data I talked about the need to introduce an "Enterprise Culture" in part to draw attention to this lacuna.  However, I recently came across ISIS - Innovative Solutions in Space which is a company based in Delft, Netherlands offering cubesats which does seem to break this mould.

I confess to not knowing too much about them but will hope to learn more soon, but the recent news that the first QB50 satellites developed under an FP7 contract (already quite an achievement) struck me as being  a great success. I see the news from last November of the successful launch of 14 cubesats and whilst these are not (mainly) concerned with EO or imagery, the new QB50 satellites will perform a remote sensing mission so are not so far away from the core interests of EARSC. The business model today seems to be mainly focused on the construction of the satellites but there are signs that this could evolve. Already they operate the satellites and have ambitions to offer messaging services.

ISIS seems to be the type of company which I have been missing in Europe. I imagine there are others of which I am not aware (respond/comment if you know them). I look forward to learning more and will comment in due course.