Analysis: the conversion mechanism is doing the work

Two things happen in this announcement and only one of them is an investment decision.

The trust states that deployment has passed £40 million of the £137 million raised, and that partial conversion of C Shares into Ordinary Shares is expected to be triggered at the end of the current quarter. C Shares exist to keep new money separate from the existing portfolio until it is invested, so that incoming and existing holders are not diluted by each other’s assets. Conversion is the point at which the two pools merge at their respective net asset values. The timing of that merger is a function of deployment pace, and three investments were made in fifteen days, two of them into companies the group already held.

The deployment threshold was disclosed at the time of the raise, and the manager said on 04 August that deployment remained on track. The Hubble announcement therefore carries information about the capital structure as well as about Hubble.

The second point is concentration. Rules for the closed-ended investment funds category require an issuer to invest and manage its assets in a way consistent with its object of spreading investment risk, and to publish an investment policy covering asset allocation, risk diversification and gearing including maximum exposures. At the last reported quarter ICEYE stood at 47.1% of NAV, with ALL.SPACE, HawkEye 360, Xona Space Systems and LeoLabs behind it. New capital deployed into new names is the mechanical route by which that ratio falls, which gives the C Share programme a portfolio function beyond simply adding assets.

On Hubble itself, the disclosure omits the inputs a valuation would need. The trust gives no post-money valuation, no ownership percentage, no round size and no co-investors. Seven satellites in orbit is an operational fact; the terrestrial network of more than 100 million access points is a count of Bluetooth-capable infrastructure, not of paying customers. The phrase describing commercial traction is not quantified anywhere in the announcement. Because Hubble is private, its carrying value in the trust’s NAV will rest on the manager’s fair value process and on the terms of subsequent funding rounds, neither of which is visible from this document.

The structural argument for the investment is legible even so. Seraphim’s stated model is to find companies through the early-stage venture funds and let the listed trust follow into growth rounds of selected holdings, and Hubble is the first C Share investment to follow that route. Entry price, which would determine what the trust paid for the position, was not disclosed.

The next disclosures that would settle these questions are the confirmation and ratio of the partial C Share conversion at the quarter end, the quarterly NAV that prices Hubble for the first time, the concentration table showing whether ICEYE’s share of NAV has fallen, and the completion or otherwise of the ALL.SPACE sale to York Space Systems.

What the documents say

Seraphim Space Investment Trust PLC (LSE: SSIT) said on 18 August 2026 that it had invested $30 million, approximately £22.2 million, in Hubble Network, Inc. The commitment is the first new portfolio company added to the trust with proceeds from its £137 million C Share issue, and it takes deployment past the threshold that triggers a partial conversion of C Shares into Ordinary Shares.

The investment

Hubble was already held by Seraphim Space Venture Fund II, the manager’s early-stage vehicle, so the trust is buying into a company the group has followed rather than a new name. Hubble is building what the announcement calls the first satellite-powered Bluetooth network, allowing standard off-the-shelf Bluetooth Low Energy chips to connect directly to space without cell towers, gateways or custom hardware. Target applications are asset tracking, logistics, supply chain management and industrial monitoring.

Chief Investment Officer James Bruegger said Hubble had progressed “from an early-stage investment to a growth-stage business with seven satellites in orbit, a terrestrial network of more than 100 million access points and significant commercial traction across multiple verticals”. He described the direct-to-device satellite connectivity market as one Hubble is positioned to lead.

The trust said it has now deployed more than £40 million of the C Share proceeds and expects a partial conversion of C Shares into Ordinary Shares to be triggered at the end of the current quarter.

Where the money came from

The C Share issue completed on 08 May 2026. The trust issued 136,508,663 new C Shares at 100 pence each, raising gross proceeds of approximately £137 million: £76.4 million from a placing, £15.1 million from a direct subscription by an institutional investor and £45.0 million from a retail offer. Chair Will Whitehorn described it as the largest fundraise by an investment company since 2023.

Admission of the C Shares to the closed-ended investment funds category of the Official List and to trading on the London Stock Exchange main market was expected on 12 May 2026. On admission the trust had 237,198,584 Ordinary Shares in issue excluding treasury, 136,508,663 C Shares, 2,186,344 shares in treasury and total voting rights of 373,707,247. The announcement stated that the C Shares convert into Ordinary Shares at periodic intervals based on quarterly NAVs.

Deployment began on 04 August 2026 with follow-on investments in two companies already in the Ordinary Share portfolio: $25 million, or £18.6 million, in the hyperspectral Earth observation company Pixxel, and $3.6 million, or £2.7 million, in the radioisotope power company Zeno. The Hubble commitment two weeks later is therefore the third deployment and the first into a company not already held by the trust.

The portfolio the C Share money is joining

The trust’s third quarter results, published on 03 June 2026, reported net asset value up 24.8% to £421.3m from £337.5m, attributed to a fair value gain on the private portfolio less a performance fee provision and costs.

The composition matters for how the Hubble investment reads. ICEYE accounted for 47.1% of NAV, having reported unaudited 2025 revenue of more than €250m, EBITDA above €100m and a contracted order backlog of €1.5bn. ALL.SPACE was 13.6% of NAV and under a binding agreement to be sold to York Space Systems. HawkEye 360, at 9.8% of NAV, listed on the New York Stock Exchange on 7 May 2026, raising $416m at a valuation of approximately $2.84bn, with the trust’s holding valued at $76.9m as at close on 1 June 2026, an uplift of 41.0% on its 31 March 2026 valuation. Xona Space Systems was 6.7%, LeoLabs 3.7%, SatVu 2.6%, Tomorrow.io 2.1% and Voyager 0.4%.