Space startup raises $90 million to bring ads to Moon by 2020

Japanese companies are planning to kick-start the lunar economy by backing a local startup’s mission to land on the moon by 2020.

 

Tokyo-based Ispace Inc said it raised 10.2 billion yen ($90 million) from some of the country’s biggest businesses, including Japan Airlines  and television network Tokyo Broadcasting System Holdings. The funds will be used to send a  spacecraft into lunar orbit by 2019, and then land one a year later.

 

Private companies are playing a bigger role in space development, from Elon Musk’s rocket launcher Space Exploration Technologies Corp and asteroid miner Planetary Resources , seeking to deliver humanity to the cosmos while securing a return for their shareholders. Ispace says a thriving lunar economy is still decades away, but it is putting profits and corporate projects at the heart of its missions in the coming years.

 

“Human beings aren’t heading to the stars to become poor,” Takeshi Hakamada, chief executive officer of Ispace, said at a press event in Tokyo. “That’s why it’s crucial to create an economy in outer space.”

 

Ispace says the initial business opportunity is mostly in marketing, including slapping corporate logos on its spacecrafts and rovers, and delivering images to be used in advertising. A successful landing will also let the company offer what it calls a “projection mapping service” — a small billboard on the moon’s surface. The startup says there will be demand from corporations looking to show off their logos with Earth in the background.