The Exploration Company, the European aerospace start-up with a base in the UAE, is in talks with global investors including UAE sovereign funds to raise $200 million in financing for the next phase of its growth, its chief executive has said.The company, which is collaborating with Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) on a lunar lander demonstrator, is weighing the option of bringing strategic investors on-board as well as exploring co-investment opportunities with UAE investors, Helene Huby, who is also co-founder of TEC, told The National.“The target is $200 million and we're going to use that money to focus on rocket engine [project] as we're developing the biggest rocket engine ever developed in Europe,” she said in an interview in Abu Dhabi. “We will be looking for lead investors in this part of the world.”The company’s present investor base, including EQT Ventures, Red River West, Cherry Ventures, Partech, Promusventures and Vsquared Ventures, is “very excited about what we're doing” and want to contribute to the next round of financing, she said.TEC, which is also backed by French and German state-back investors, is looking to engage UAE sovereign and institutional investor such as the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the world’s biggest sovereign fund and Lunate, an Abu Dhabi-based investment holding company. The company is in initial talks with UAE investors, and “that's one of the reasons why I'm here”, Ms Huby said, adding the discussions so far have been positive.“I think people are excited to see someone who has a huge ambition”, aims to share “key technologies across nations” and in doing so “building a future for us in space, which is more collaborative”, she added.The company, which has so far raised $335 million, expects to exceed the financing target for latest round, same as it did in earlier successive fundraising campaigns, according to Ms Huby.In its Series B financing campaign, TEC aimed to raise $80 million but ended up with almost double of the intended target. It invited more investors upon achieving milestones, which pushed the funding to $240 million. The company's Series A and Series B financing were the biggest raised in Europe by a space start-up at the time, she said. “In a few days, we'll be starting the Series C, so let's see where we land. But I must say, we were always oversubscribed in every fundraise,” she added.Magnet for venturesThe UAE, the Arab-world’s second-largest economy, is home to some of the largest sovereign wealth funds, including Adia, Mubadala Investment Company and Li’mad Holding in Abu Dhabi as well as the Investment Corporation of Dubai. The country over the past few years has emerged as a haven for start-ups, attracting advance technology, FinTech, and AI ventures from around the globe looking to raise funds and build their businesses across the region.The Emirates also has a space programme that would position the country among the world's top 10 space economies by 2031. Doubling the number of space companies as well UAE's space economy revenue by 2031 are also among the pillars of the plan.In the past decade, the country has achieved a number of milestones in space exploration. Astronaut Maj Hazza Al Mansouri became the first Emirati space in September 2019.The UAE's Hope Probe in 2021 successfully entered the orbit of Mars and in 2023, astronaut Dr Sultan Al Neyadi, now UAE Minister of State for Youth Affairs, became the first Emirati to complete a six-month mission on-board the International Space Station.The UAE is also working on plans to send an autonomous spacecraft, known as the MBR Explorer, to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.Dr Sultan Al Neyadi, now UAE Minister of State for Youth Affairs, became the first Emirati to complete a six-month mission onboard the International Space StationInfoAmbitious plansTEC, which was founded in 2021 by Ms Huby and a team of space engineers, operates from offices in Germany, France, Italy, Houston, Texas, and Dubai. It is the first European company to sign a Space Act Agreement with US space agency Nasa.With several space stations being built around the Earth and the Moon, the company expects the space transport market to grow from the current $5 billion to $50 billion within the next decade. The company is developing a space capsule in collaboration with Nasa and plans to take on the rocket project next. TEC aims to build a modular and reusable space vehicle called Nyx, which will be able to takes off from any heavy carrier in the world and deliver cargo to and from space stations in lower Earth orbit and beyond.“We will see a time when it costs about $100 to send 1 kilogram to orbit, and that's going to be transformational for what we can do in space … how we can explore space,” Ms Huby said. TEC is also collaborating with the MBRSC in Dubai and has invested its own capital in the lunar lander demonstrator being developed in UAE. The demonstrator could cost as much as $20 million, and TEC is contributing about 85 per cent of the project which will enter critical testing phase next year.The company wants to demonstrate that it can build here “critical technology and knowledge”, Ms Huby said.“Right now, we are very focused on this test, which will happen next year”, which is a milestone that's going to bring “a lot of credibility and of excitement”, she said.A composite image of Mars' tiny moon Deimos captured by the UAE's Hope probe: Photo: Hope probeInfoUAE a logical entry pointTEC’s office in the UAE serves as its regional headquarter, as the company plans to branch out to other Gulf, broader Middle East and Asian markets. The UAE, said Ms Huby, was the logical entry point for TEC into the region, with its drive for knowledge and the push to achieve the country’s space strategy goals.“It is very clear for me that the UAE will be one of the top space leading nations in the next 10 years, and we want to serve this growth,” Ms Huby said. “We want to be a part of this.”There is also collaboration between the UAE and Europe, and “I want to contribute to being a bridge between these two”, she added.The company has chosen to invest in the UAE very early on in its journey.One of the reasons behinds TEC setting up a base in the UAE is that people here are “ambitious, determined, they have money, and are knowledgeable, and this combination of the four is very rare”, Ms Huby said, adding that it is something which she has only seen in Silicon Valley in the US.