The firm, which was opened in Luxembourg by Andy Bowyer as a spin-off of Magna Parva in 2017, listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in August 2018 where it secured €6.96m in capital.

In a statement published on 12 December 2018, the firm announced the dual listing of shares on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, trading with the ticker code KS1.

It will launch and operate its first earth observation satellite system, the Scouting Mission, in early 2019. Its satellites are designed to gather geolocated radio transmission data, which will be sold for rescue, maritime, security and regulatory intelligence purposes.

“It will allow European investors to engage more easily with the company’s plans over the next 12 months as it launches the Kleos Scouting Mission and starts selling its commercial and independent data to government agencies, the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) community and organisations interested in locating threats, assets or those in need of search and rescue,” Bowyer said in the statement.

Luxembourg has positioned itself as a newspace-friendly country after the government launched the SpaceResources.lu initiative in 2016, aimed at gathering know-how and partners and creating legislation in relation to the mining of resources in space.

Kleos is one of scores of startups and established companies which have opened offices in Luxembourg. There remain gaps in financing the activities of these innovative startups in Luxembourg and Europe, a topic which Delano explored in its November/December 2018 edition.

In it, Bowyer said the decision to take the firm to the Australian Stock Exchange was because the bourse had a track record of bringing high-tech companies through and having successful IPOs very early on in their development. “I’m sure people will follow the same footsteps. Lots of people have asked me about it,” he told Delano.