SMALLSAT MARKETS ARE MATURING; FUNDING IS DISRUPTED – WHAT’S NEXT?

As leader of the firm’s Transportation and Space Group in Washington, DC, Dara Panahy’s practice involves representation of satellite and space infrastructure operators, aerospace manufacturers, launch services providers, communications, earth observation and data services companies, banks, private equity firms, hedge funds and other investors in debt and equity offerings, project, structured and vendor financings, mergers & acquisitions, financial restructurings and in negotiating commercial contracts. He also advises on regulatory, sanctions, anti-corruption, national security and export control matters.

Mr. Panahy’s practice focuses on representing clients involved in the aerospace, communications and data service industries. He advises on numerous financings involving public offerings, high yield debt, investment grade bonds, project and vendor financings, mergers & acquisitions, financial restructuring and reorganizations and in negotiating project contracts. He also counsels clients on domestic and international regulatory and trade matters, including licensing of communications systems, economic sanctions, regulation of foreign direct investment, anti-bribery and corrupt practices, national security and export control laws and regulations and risk management.

His recent representations include:
• numerous commercial satellite and launch services procurements for clients in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia
• procurement and financing of next-generation, multi-billion dollar regional and global fixed and mobile satellite systems
• various satellite, aerospace and communications company mergers & acquisitions, strategic venture transactions and restructurings in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia
• bank and capital markets financings, and private placements, involving global, regional and national communications, broadcast, broadband, remote sensing and asset tracking companies and service providers

Mr. Panahy is a regular speaker at space and communications conferences, a visiting lecturer at the International Space University and has published articles and delivered numerous presentations on finance, commercial and regulatory aspects of the aerospace and communications industries. He has been recognized as a leading lawyer in Telecom, Broadcast and Satellite Financing in Chambers USA and The Legal 500. Mr. Panahy speaks fluent Spanish and Farsi.

Mike Collett is Founder and Managing Partner of Promus Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in deep-tech early-stage startups, with offices in Chicago, San Francisco and Luxembourg. Mike has been a venture capital investor for over 20 years. Mike has invested in over 100 startups, including Rocket Lab, AngelList, Whoop, Mapbox, ICEYE, Bellabeat, FLYR, Kensho, Cobalt Robotics, Swift Navigation, and others.

Prior to Promus Ventures, Mike was Founder and Managing Partner of Masters Capital Nanotechnology Fund, a venture capital firm. While working at Masters Capital, a hedge fund, Mike invested in software and hardware startups. Prior to venture capital, Mike was a Vice President in Merrill Lynch’s Mergers & Acquisitions group.

Mike holds a BA in Math and BA in English from Vanderbilt University. He also holds a MBA in Finance from Washington University in St. Louis.

Mike and his wife Paige have four children and live in Chicago.

Timur Davis is an Investment Director at Munich Re Ventures (MRV) where he leads the ClimateTech and Future of Transportation sectors, and invests in companies solving some of the biggest challenges facing the world. These include strengthening climate resilience, improving sustainability, enabling the energy transition, and creating new paradigms for the movement of people, goods, and data across all domains of transportation.

Prior to Munich Re Ventures, Timur was a Principal at Canapi Ventures and Live Oak Ventures, where he led the Series A and sat on the board of Kwipped and also invested in Greenlight Financial Technologies, Payrailz, and Finxact. Earlier, Timur was a Senior Investment Manager at Samsung Ventures where he led investments in BigCommerce (NASDAQ: BIGC), Audioburst, ScyllaDB, WellDoc, and Wildcat Discovery Technologies, among others.

Before becoming a venture capitalist, Timur was a strategy consultant, first at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in New York, USA and then at the Samsung Global Strategy Group (GSG) in Seoul, South Korea. In both roles, Timur led consulting engagements focused on growth strategy in a variety of fields including banking, pharmaceuticals, consumer electronics, and enterprise software.

Timur lives in San Francisco and holds a PhD from the Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics at Columbia University and a BS in Materials Science and Engineering from Rutgers University.

Lewis is a VP at Generation Space, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Seraphim Space Manager which manages a $300M AUM fund entirely focused on space. Lewis holds a first-class Aerospace degree from the University of Southampton and was previously a Thermal Analyst working on jet engines at Rolls-Royce. At Generation Space, Lewis has supported more than 20 transactions into space businesses, responsible for over $150m of deployed capital.

Armand Musey is President and Founder of Summit Ridge Group. He has over 15 years of equity research, investment banking, and consulting experience. Armand has completed dozens of financial valuation, strategic analysis, business development, corporate governance, and business plan creation assignments in the communications industry and has experience working on numerous financing and M&A transactions. His projects include leading Summit Ridge Group’s support of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust division’s review of the proposed T-Mobile/Sprint merger. Armand’s involvement with a wide breadth of companies has allowed him to develop a deep understanding of a range of media and telecom issues and the complex web of relationships underlying the sector’s competitive dynamics and associated regulatory issues. His legal background allows him to understand the heavily regulated telecom sector. During litigation support assignments, Armand’s legal background also allows him to quickly digest legal documents and identify industry issues likely to be most relevant to the legal team he supports. Prior to founding Summit Ridge Group, Armand led the satellite industry research teams for Banc of America Securities, and later Solomon Smith Barney where he also covered the wireless tower industry. He earned numerous honors as a research analyst including being named to the Institutional Investor “All American” team three times (2000-2002) and the Wall Street Journal “All-Star” team. He was ranked as the top satellite industry analyst by Greenwich Associates. He was previously president of a boutique investment bank specializing in the satellite, media, and telecom industries.

Dr. Xiaoming Yin is a Senior Investment Manager at Lockheed Martin Ventures. Her primary investment focus at Lockheed is in Space Technologies, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Next Generation Computing, Quantum Technologies, Data Analytics, and Advanced Materials.

Prior to joining Lockheed Martin Ventures, Xiaoming was a Fintech Associate at Pivotus Ventures. At Pivotus, she developed the investment thesis and worked on product development for a next-generation digital bank. Before joining Pivotus, Xiaoming worked five years as a Quantitative Researcher in Citigroup Option Market Making trading division.

Xiaoming received M.S and Ph.D in Electrical Engineering from Northwestern University, where her work was published and presented in several international journals, as well as conferences. Xiaoming also received B.A in Economics and B.S in Electrical Engineering from Rice University.