The rapid expansion of the commercial space industry over the last couple of years has led early-stage investors to consider very different types of companies than they did when space startups were a novelty.
The availability of more affordable rides to space, the maturity of ground infrastructure and improvements to accessibility and usability of earth observation data have combined to position entirely new breeds of space-related ventures as ripe for high-risk, high-growth investment.
At TC Sessions: Space 2021, we hosted “Being There When Stars Form,” a panel discussion with three early-stage investors:
- Chad Anderson, founder and managing partner, Space Capital
- Jessica Robinson, co-founder and partner, Assembly Ventures
- Jonathan Fentzke, managing director, Techstars
Given the topic, we talked about SPACs and also focused on areas that are piquing the interest of people who are placing bets on new and emerging space-related tech companies. Something everyone shared an interest in was infrastructure, including sustainable on-orbit operations and collision-avoidance, as well as applications being developed using in-space assets that are already in operation.
Find highlights from our conversation below, or scroll to the bottom for a video with the entire chat.
Chad Anderson
The last 10 years have been transformative for space; we’ve gone from a handful of defense contractors and a few monolithic satellites in orbit, to suddenly tons of participation by 1,600 space companies, raising a lot of capital over the last 10 years and deploying a lot of satellites. SpaceX and Starlink have launched quite a few satellites this year, as they roll out their beta version of Starlink and going into commercial production next year. And from 2020 to 2021, we’ve seen a massive uptick in the number of satellites launched. So we have tons more commercial activity that’s happening in space and no doubt, there’s 100 times more debris in orbit. So getting our arms around that is a key focus area for governments and commercial companies.
Jessica Robinson
The things that are most exciting to us, regardless of whether they’re here on Earth, or in space, are certainly around data. I’m sure we’ll talk a lot about that today. I think the continued opportunities and applications of AI and machine learning are particularly applicable here as well, given that you don’t want to downlink things that you don’t have to. And I think robotics is another area that for us as investors translates well, certainly there are considerations in the space environment.
Jonathan Fentzke
I’m really interested in autonomy and economy, and specifically sustainable use, in a congested and contested domain of space, and supporting terrestrial applications. So, I think there’s a really exciting sort of second wave coming in 2022 and beyond based on that infrastructure investment that has been made that Chad and Jessica spoke about. So it’s really going to be moving into the edge applications.
Another area of interest across all the panelists was environmental, social and corporate governance (aka ESG). Accountability and action are both dependent on being able to see and measure what kind of impact you’re having across your global footprint as a company, and space-based assets can provide that like nothing else.
Chad Anderson
Planet went public, this was the first investment that we made out of our fund in 2015. So for us, this is a really special one. And they listed as a public benefit corporation, and their mission is to illuminate on environmental and sustainability issues. So certainly, and public reception to this ticker has been great so far. That shows that there is money to be made here. We think there’s a massive opportunity, we’ve put out a report recently that talked about the great climate opportunity, and there’s a trillion-dollar investment opportunity here, if you invest wisely. And so we think that space has a key role to play in this: Half of the essential climate variables that we monitor already come from satellites, 99% of weather forecasts that we get come from satellites. Satellites are what enable us to understand and address global issues at this scale. We’re investing in that technology from the sensors in orbit to the applications of that data.
Jessica Robinson
For our new fund, our first investment is in battery technology. So we’re very much embedded in some of these questions. But I think what’s interesting […] is I think, for people maybe not in this industry, or coming into this industry, they think about space and sci-fi. The narrative is at some point about getting off the planet, or mining and doing other things elsewhere […] That’s certainly part of what’s interesting to some folks, but I think in this question of ESG and monitoring is how can we use that additional resource in perspective, in sensors or otherwise, to be more effective and efficient here on Earth while we are here, and whether that’s just probably for a while, whether that’s monitoring or comms or other things that interplay. I think that’s absolutely part of the story and sometimes we lose that, when we get excited about billionaires launching into space and stuff like that.
Jonathan Fentzke
Carl Sagan had it right, with Voyager and the pale blue dot: If you’re anywhere else in the known universe, Earth is the most interesting place to study and be part of. So remote sensing gives us physically verifiable data and the ability to understand and to monitor and predict change, which is a huge part of the economy and value creation. And while it is inspirational to see, quote unquote, everyday people, I guess if you have money, you can become an astronaut, go up into space or pass by the Kármán line and all that, at the end of the day, the majority of economy is not going to be happening through tourism, although it is interesting. It’s going to be the applications of data to existing and emerging markets.
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