(Bloomberg) — Astroscale Holdings Inc. founder Nobu Okada said the company will increase investment in technology to remove space debris after the pioneering company’s shares rose in its debut in Tokyo.
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The shares traded at ¥1,581 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s growth market, 86% above the initial public offering price of ¥850. At 1 p.m. local time, the shares were trading at ¥1,510, giving the company a capitalization market share of ¥170 billion (US$1.1 billion).
Demand is growing rapidly in the commercial space industry, but the imminent risk of orbital debris remains unpredictable, Okada said. “This is precisely why it is important to act now,” he said in an interview.
Okada, 51, founded Astroscale more than a decade ago and has since helped make the company a leader in the fledgling industry.
“In space, the risks are high but the returns are still low,” he said. “We need to find a way to improve returns.”
Astroscale is a leader among a group of startups hoping to tackle threats from orbital debris, which pose risks to satellite constellations like SpaceX’s Starlink.
The Tokyo-based company, which also aims to expand into other types of services such as satellite refueling and repair, launched an ambitious mission in February to inspect part of a Japanese rocket left in orbit, the first attempt of its kind to make a close approach to a large piece of space debris.
The spacecraft safely approached within several hundred meters of the target, Astroscale announced on April 22.
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