9Point8 Capital Partners with Brownsville, TX
9Point8 Capital, a group of companies that supports the space industry with end-to-end financial products, has announced a partnership with the City of Brownsville, TX.
"This city is quickly becoming an important location within the space industry and because we consider our relationship with our clients and investors to be paramount in helping them succeed, we need to be located near them — which includes being right here in Brownsville."
9point8 Capital founder J. Brant Arseneau.
According to company founder J. Brant Arseneau, 9Point8 Capital's vision is to support space companies from their earliest to latest stages, with private equity to public credit, for investment capital to working capital. After nearly 25 years on Wall Street, Arseneau decided to chase his lifelong dream of being a part of the growing commercialization of the space industry and a new founded movement called NewSpace.
Arseneau is building companies that currently include the advisory group, 9Point8 Capital - a public capital raising platform, Spaced Ventures - a venture fund, Gravity Management, and a soon to be launched incubator and hatchery, 10MK.
As part of this partnership in Brownsville, 9Point8 Capital will build a local back-office team to support their global financial infrastructure and locate their incubator and hatchery within the city. Additionally, Arseneau announced that 9point8 Capital is creating a Space Scholarship Fund that will be available for students in Brownsville who attend the University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley.
During a news conference with city officials and the Brownsville Incentives Corporation, Arseneau, who was recently appointed as a space ambassador for the Canadian Space Agency, mentioned that after architecting the group of companies, he overlayed a geographical strategy that would create a global financial infrastructure that brought 9Point8 Capital closer to their clients and investors. In turn, this led them to identify Brownsville as a key location in the growing space industry in the United States, as well as internationally.
"The City of Brownsville is thrilled to support 9Point8, so they can help provide the financial infrastructure to both early and late-stage space companies that are finding a home in our region," said Brownsville Mayor Trey Mendez. "As the home of the SpaceX launch site and many other space companies, Brownsville, Texas, is the future of the space industry in the United States and becoming an important part of a larger global industry, and this company fits what we are trying to do in Brownsville to foster the NewSpace ecosystem."
"This city is quickly becoming an important location within the space industry and because we consider our relationship with our clients and investors to be paramount in helping them succeed, we need to be located near them — which includes being right here in Brownsville," Arseneau said.
Brownsville is often considered the third city for space after Cape Canaveral and Houston in the U.S. and is well on its way to becoming the Silicon Valley of Space, due to its ties with SpaceX. Their innovative agile approach to the space industry is considered more effective than what traditional space companies have seen in the past. Additionally, the city continues to attract space companies to the region, and with the addition of 9Point8, it adds local financial infrastructure to help these companies grow.
(Source: City of Brownsville news release. Canadian Space Agency image via PR Newswire)