START UP SPACE: Rising Investments in Commercial Space Ventures


At Ramsey Financial Group, the burgeoning space start-up sector has been identified as an industry with significant momentum and investment opportunity. As some of the most successful business minds of this century are betting their fortunes on this new industry, many investors have stood by with anticipation, waiting to see if this industry would ‘take off.’ And it has. The Tauri Group recently interviewed space start-up investors ,from angels to venture capitalists to private equity, to get the details on investing in out-of-this world ventures. The prevailing attitude is that this bullish market is ripe for investment and significant wealth creation opportunities exist now. To learn more about RFG’s space investment philosophy, please visit our Space investment page, or Contact us for more information. 

From the Report:
Space ventures have attracted over $13.3 billion of investment, including $5.1 billion in debt financing, since 2000. Over 80 angel- and venture-backed space companies have been founded since 2000. Eight of these companies have been acquired, at a total value of $2 .2 billion. Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk are well known “space billionaires”; of the 1,826 people on Forbes’ Billionaires List, 21 have an affiliation to a space enterprise. Over 110 venture capital (VC) firms have invested in space companies.

Angels and VCs talked to The Tauri Group about their outlook and motivations. Interviewees attributed the increase in venture investment in space to more attractive opportunities and to successful exits. One investor summed up investor expectations succinctly, “You can now make money with space investment, which wasn’t largely a true statement before.”

Investors we interviewed had an overall rosy view of the future of the space industry. Several investors mentioned that they thought that in the long term we would see a trend of commercialization of space, to include private space travel or colonization of the Moon or Mars. In the nearer term, many mentioned launch availability, cost, and frequency as being drivers of change and advancements in the space industry. While some investors mentioned that the near future would provide an opportunity for new technologies and system architectures to be tested in the real market, there was a general feeling that the markets of space weather and climate monitoring, data communications, and vertical integration of data and data analytics will be successful areas within the space market. One investor envisioned a future where space-provided data was so ubiquitous that it would be a competitor with terrestrial internet providers. A few investors mentioned the idea that a successful human spaceflight operator and customers could draw new markets and new investments, and make space investments more mainstream . One thing most investors agreed on, is that the space market is changing — summed up by one investor as the next 7 years will have the same amount of change as the last 50.

Start-up space investors are optimistic about the future of space ventures—that, after all, is why they are start-up space investors . They differ, however, in their views of the immediate future of investing . One experienced Silicon Valley hand said succinctly, “Once everyone knows that space is a good place to invest, it’s too late.” A number of investors highlighted the rich opportunity now for venture investing in space, compared to potentially fewer opportunities in the future.

Read the Full Report:  Start_Up_Space – Rising Investment – Tauri Group