Are there publicly traded launch companies?
It's frequently overlooked that Avio, mostly known as the prime contractor on Vela, is a public company.
Quote from: M.E.T. on 07/03/2021 07:00 am We know, your opinion is that investing in any space company (including Spire Global, BlackSky, Redwire Space, and other companies developing payloads or satellite infrastructure, not just would-be launch providers) is foolish, because every space company will be bankrupt in a decade, dead in the wake of SpaceX.
Well Astra went head to head with Starship and won, that's a plus, I don't think any other smallsat launcher can make the same claim.
Quote from: su27k on 07/04/2021 04:35 amWell Astra went head to head with Starship and won, that's a plus, I don't think any other smallsat launcher can make the same claim.I understand this was said partly in jest, but just to be clear, no one is saying these companies will not win ANY launches. The question is whether they can sustainably win the HUNDREDS of launches per year (in the case of Astra’s claimed projections) to justify their investment proposals and business cases.
Quote from: M.E.T. on 07/04/2021 05:32 amQuote from: su27k on 07/04/2021 04:35 amWell Astra went head to head with Starship and won, that's a plus, I don't think any other smallsat launcher can make the same claim.I understand this was said partly in jest, but just to be clear, no one is saying these companies will not win ANY launches. The question is whether they can sustainably win the HUNDREDS of launches per year (in the case of Astra’s claimed projections) to justify their investment proposals and business cases.I investing in RL just to have some skin in game. Not expecting them to achieve their optimistic forecast but do expect them to do OK in long run. One thing RL has going for them is launch only makes up half their business.Sent from my SM-G570Y using Tapatalk
Quote from: TrevorMonty on 07/04/2021 10:00 amQuote from: M.E.T. on 07/04/2021 05:32 amQuote from: su27k on 07/04/2021 04:35 amWell Astra went head to head with Starship and won, that's a plus, I don't think any other smallsat launcher can make the same claim.I understand this was said partly in jest, but just to be clear, no one is saying these companies will not win ANY launches. The question is whether they can sustainably win the HUNDREDS of launches per year (in the case of Astra’s claimed projections) to justify their investment proposals and business cases.I investing in RL just to have some skin in game. Not expecting them to achieve their optimistic forecast but do expect them to do OK in long run. One thing RL has going for them is launch only makes up half their business.Sent from my SM-G570Y using TapatalkHow do you invest in RocketLabs, are they public now?
Take a look at ARKXTheir complete list of holdings can be found here: https://ark-funds.com/wp-content/fundsiteliterature/holdings/ARK_SPACE_EXPLORATION_&_INNOVATION_ETF_ARKX_HOLDINGS.pdf
There is lawsuit being filed against Vector, just law firm trying it on. Should be able google details.Sent from my SM-G570Y using Tapatalk
ARK Investments have Space and Technology fund ARKX, worth looking at stock this fund is holding. Only just started so no grow at present. They will likely buy into new space companies as they go public.Will be interesting see which companies they invest in and if they are same companies I think have good future. No Virgin shares which gives me confidence the fund managers know industry. Sent from my SM-G570Y using Tapatalk
Quote from: TrevorMonty on 07/05/2021 11:01 amARK Investments have Space and Technology fund ARKX, worth looking at stock this fund is holding. Only just started so no grow at present. They will likely buy into new space companies as they go public.Will be interesting see which companies they invest in and if they are same companies I think have good future. No Virgin shares which gives me confidence the fund managers know industry. Sent from my SM-G570Y using TapatalkI stay away from investment funds, why pay a middleman?
Quote from: Danderman on 07/06/2021 02:55 amQuote from: TrevorMonty on 07/05/2021 11:01 amARK Investments have Space and Technology fund ARKX, worth looking at stock this fund is holding. Only just started so no grow at present. They will likely buy into new space companies as they go public.Will be interesting see which companies they invest in and if they are same companies I think have good future. No Virgin shares which gives me confidence the fund managers know industry. Sent from my SM-G570Y using TapatalkI stay away from investment funds, why pay a middleman?Exposure to companies that are not publicly traded. The US has some of the more draconian barriers against private individuals investing in non-public companies, so unless you can pass the very high 'Accredited Investor' threshold or the company raising funds meets the requirements for (and is willing to jump through the regulatory hoops required for) equity crowdfunding, investing in a fund that is able to acquire stake in private companies is the only way to invest in those private companies.
I wonder if we are going to see a new launch company do a SPAC, and then never launch again, holding into hundreds of millions of dollars in investment dollars.
While mergers involving special purpose acquisition corporations (SPACs) dominated the space industry for much of the year, one expert sees warning signs of waning interest in this way of taking companies public.Speaking at the ASCEND conference by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics here Nov. 16, Phil Ingle, a managing director at Morgan Stanley, said weakening interest in SPACs in the broader market may make it more difficult for space firms to raise large amounts of capital by merging with such “blank check” companies.“There are certain warning signs in terms of what’s happening in the SPAC market,” he said. “There are real signs of fatigue in the SPAC market right now.”
Astra successful launch hasn't helped their share price of about $9.50, I was expecting a significant increase. If anything it's gone down from $10.50 few days ago.RL have gone up from $14.50 to $15.50 over week with couple of $16+ spikes, successful launch and recent purchase of another company seem to be reason. Sent from my SM-T733 using Tapatalk
Not much money in the launch market. After you take out the segments owned by SpaceX and by various state actors, what’s left of the pie?
Quote from: TrevorMonty on 11/21/2021 05:26 pmAstra successful launch hasn't helped their share price of about $9.50, I was expecting a significant increase. If anything it's gone down from $10.50 few days ago.RL have gone up from $14.50 to $15.50 over week with couple of $16+ spikes, successful launch and recent purchase of another company seem to be reason. Sent from my SM-T733 using TapatalkThe market, was closed when Astra launch with success her rocket...We will see what happend this Monday...
The new space SPAC race is "who is first to be delisted". I think Spire is in the lead at $2, Blacksky at $2.50, Momentus at $3, Astra close behind at $4. All $10 before they de-SPAC'd. Delisting usually happens when a stock goes under $1; could reverse split to delay it.
https://twitter.com/wikkit/status/1487077829317644293QuoteThe new space SPAC race is "who is first to be delisted". I think Spire is in the lead at $2, Blacksky at $2.50, Momentus at $3, Astra close behind at $4. All $10 before they de-SPAC'd. Delisting usually happens when a stock goes under $1; could reverse split to delay it.
None of them (the SPAC-space bunch) are good investments.
Quote from: M.E.T. on 02/08/2022 12:17 pmNone of them (the SPAC-space bunch) are good investments.You would argue that any space company whose name doesn't begin with "Space" and end with "Exploration Technologies" is a bad investment.
Many space companies that have gone public in the last year through SPAC deals have suffered major losses in the stock market in recent months, but that decline doesn’t necessarily mean a broader skepticism about the industry.More than a dozen companies have either gone public through mergers with special purpose acquisition corporations (SPACs) in the last year or have announced plans to do so. However, most of those companies have seen their share prices drop significantly, in some cases by more than 50%, since going public.During a panel discussion at the SmallSat Symposium here Feb. 8, Mike Collett, founder and managing partner of Promus Ventures, pointed to data his company had collected on the market performance of space companies. The Promus Ventures New Space Index, which includes many space companies that have gone public in the last year, is down more than 42% in the last three months. By comparison, the Nasdaq is down 12.25% and the S&P 500 4.5%.
Space companies that went public in the last year only to see their valuation drop precipitously may soon become targets of acquisitions.Potential acquirers, panelists said at the SmallSat Symposium Feb.9, range from other emerging space companies looking to move up the value chain to large aerospace companies that want to diversify.“Absolutely,” said Matt O’Connell, operating partner at DCVC, when asked during the panel if falling share prices of publicly traded space companies made them takeover targets. “The stock price is a red flag that is going to attract people’s attention.”
145% up today for Blacksky and 25% for Spire good day for these companies...
I read and listened to space companies' Q1 reports, so you don't have to!Summaries of:$AJRD$ASTS$ASTR$BKSY$IRDM$MAXR$MNTS$MYNA$RDW$RKLB$SATL$SPIR$TSAT$LLAP$VSAT$SPCE$VORBhttps://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/28/space-company-q1-results-performance-during-supply-chain-disruptions.html
🧵I believe 2023 will be the year that the New Space bubble pops. It will mark the end of New Space 1.0 and lead to a new generation of New Space startups that will emerge from the rubble — New Space 2.0.1/n The New Space era began in 2002 with the founding of SpaceX. Their ability to drive down launch costs has been the biggest enabler in the development of New Space: the ecosystem of hundreds of space startups founded over the past 20 years I’m a big believer in the long-term New Space economy but, my view on the immediate opportunity set has evolved dramatically over the past 18 months as record-breaking levels of capital have flowed into New Space.The glut of inbound capital has exacerbated the core systemic risk within New Space — the overfunding of startups with highly speculative business models at unsustainable valuations. My thinking here is heavily influenced by a story I heard back in 2013 from the founder of Y-Combinator, @paulg, about how he foresaw the pending dot-com collapse while working at Yahoo.“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes,” and I think there are parallels to draw here about the systemic risk of a new sector driven by new entrants selling primarily to other new entrants As it relates to New Space, not all companies are made equal from a customer perspective. The simple system we use internally buckets New Space startups into three categories based on the market they are pursuing: Space for Earth, Space for Space, and Beyond Earth.Space for Space and Beyond Earth are most at risk as they are generally pursuing markets that don’t exist yet and their customers are primarily New Space companies. This creates a circular dependency between startups that makes them vulnerable to a chain reaction of failures. The long fuse that will ultimately “pop this bubble” was lit by the departure of many growth-stage investors (Series B and larger) who are licking their wounds from massive valuation write-downs of their public positions and increasing interest rates. A record $15.4 billion was invested in New Space startups in 2021. Most startups raise for at least 18 months of runway so I think it’ll take until next year before the first wave of early-stage New Space startups are forced to go out to market and fail to raise new capital. The proceeding shutdowns and acquihires will represent the end of the first era of space startups — the end of New Space 1.0. I believe this type of financial correction plays an important cleansing function in markets: the strongest businesses will survive and then thrive as a result of the decreased competition for capital and employees. The future described here is not one of total destruction but one of bifurcated outcomes — the haves and the have-nots will diverge massively. And the winners that emerge will represent a new era — New Space 2.0. These companies will be defined by scrappy founders, pursuing capital-efficient business models, and credible paths to revenue. Undoubtedly the next SpaceX and PlanetLabs will be built in this upcoming period and we are excited to be their first check!🧵end
Some companies in the space industry may not survive the coming headwinds in the U.S. and global economies, United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno said July 11.“I think we’re really looking at a sea state change,” Bruno said at the Space Innovation Summit, an online event
Space industry warned to prepare for impact from lurking recessionQuote from: SpaceNews Some companies in the space industry may not survive the coming headwinds in the U.S. and global economies, United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno said July 11.“I think we’re really looking at a sea state change,” Bruno said at the Space Innovation Summit, an online event
* Private investment in space companies dwindled in the second quarter.* The sector was weighed down by broader economic and market headwinds but was salvaged in part by a funding round at Elon Musk’s SpaceX.* Space Capital tracks 1,727 companies which have raised $264 billion in cumulative global equity investments since 2012.
The SPAC boom hit a wall as risk appetite evaporated, and most space companies that went public are down 40% to 85% over the past year.My deep dive for @CNBCPro on value, opportunity, and danger for investors:
Investors don’t think this way, though that sounds counterintuitive. They care about % ownership of a specific valuation, that they want to see go higher. Valuation initially is more made up on some combo of projected revenues and future profits, but with revenue and profits per launch normal industry multiples start to matter. For tech startup, it’s based on revenue growth usually, then profit later. This is how you get companies like Tesla and Rivian that have raised astronomical amount of capital vs anything in rocket land, but at the time they brought such capital in they had less maturity. Launch market size is still several billion per year, so future revenue and profits have potential to be high
The question is simple: For a new launch company, how many launches are required to recover the initial investment?Thought experiment addressing the above:If you invest $1B to get your first rocket to orbit, what is the expected profit per launch? In the new low cost launch market built by SpaceX, $10M profit per launch for any small to medium lift launcher seems highly ambitious, probably flat out unlikely.But even at $10M, that means 100 launches just to recover the initial investment. If it’s just $5M, that means 200 launches.How long is that likely to take from first making orbit? 10 years? And that’s without accounting for continued R&D to stay competitive with the still innovating market leader.In this context, how does any new launch company make sense as a business case?
Quote from: M.E.T. on 08/15/2022 04:19 amThe question is simple: For a new launch company, how many launches are required to recover the initial investment?Thought experiment addressing the above:If you invest $1B to get your first rocket to orbit, what is the expected profit per launch? In the new low cost launch market built by SpaceX, $10M profit per launch for any small to medium lift launcher seems highly ambitious, probably flat out unlikely.But even at $10M, that means 100 launches just to recover the initial investment. If it’s just $5M, that means 200 launches.How long is that likely to take from first making orbit? 10 years? And that’s without accounting for continued R&D to stay competitive with the still innovating market leader.In this context, how does any new launch company make sense as a business case?Agree with what you're saying, but I disagree with your numbers, and the numbers make all the difference.$1B to get your first rocket to orbit is a lot, and way more than I would say anyone has put into doing so. I forget the numbers but SpaceX spent at most ~200 million to put F1 into orbit, and other medium-lift companies are doing around the same. That changes your math to needing only 20 launches. I think the $10M figure is on the high end of what's possible, but I don't think it's unreasonable. Probably $6-10M is the right range on margin.But covering the investment isn't the goal. It actually isn't too relevant. For any company that's honest and has some dignity, the goal is to produce more than you take. Profit more than you spend. At that point, what matters is just what the yearly overhead is. That's where we really see things take shape -- the companies succeeding with the fewest people, the fewest facilities, the fewest locations, and the fewest exotic R&D development, are the ones that'll come out on top in this respect. Relativity, with a dozen locations, a hyper-exotic capital sinkhole of 3D printing, 1000 people on payroll, and hundreds of thousand of square feet of real estate, is an example of being in a bad position. There are others in a pretty favorable position. If you assume a company has 500 people that make an average of $70,000 that's $35M. Assume that for the rest of the year, all other expenses (leases, facilities, operations, etc) are another $65M. That's $100M/yr. At that rate, with a $10M margin, it just takes 10 launches to go red. At that point, you've taken the mantle of being the most successful company in the entire industry - look at Astra and VG sweating ~$60-70M/qtr while launching nothing. It's a shockingly low bar that few are meeting, but is a reasonable bar. It's like playing a game of Limbo where the stick is at the highest rung and you just gotta bend back a bit, but you choose to walk into it fully standing up.
And having a launch product is not necessarily important or desirable.
Quote from: butters on 08/15/2022 05:29 pmAnd having a launch product is not necessarily important or desirable.If your launch services are at least breakeven, you can leverage them for bundle deals with your in-space services, as well as use them as free launches for testing your own in-house hardware prototypes.
Quote from: trimeta on 08/15/2022 05:32 pmQuote from: butters on 08/15/2022 05:29 pmAnd having a launch product is not necessarily important or desirable.If your launch services are at least breakeven, you can leverage them for bundle deals with your in-space services, as well as use them as free launches for testing your own in-house hardware prototypes.None of the public companies are break even on launch.
Quote from: Danderman on 07/10/2021 02:56 amI wonder if we are going to see a new launch company do a SPAC, and then never launch again, holding into hundreds of millions of dollars in investment dollars.So, like a scamcurrency exit scam?
Quote from: Asteroza on 07/11/2021 10:46 pmQuote from: Danderman on 07/10/2021 02:56 amI wonder if we are going to see a new launch company do a SPAC, and then never launch again, holding into hundreds of millions of dollars in investment dollars.So, like a scamcurrency exit scam?More like a financial exit strategy for the early angels and VC investors who backed the company at the start, and then bundled it into an SPAC to have their own exit. I own a real world manufacturing startup going through similar issues now. We have early stage and angel investors who want an exit (cashing out at a profit). This is perfectly normal, and entirely expected. However, the aerospace and environmental technology we are building is wildly complex (plasma reactors for chemical synthesis), but no where nearly as large or complex as a rocket.The build risk for an aerospace firm is tremendous. Real world technologies in general are wildly more risky because all the development and de-risking cost of the business model happens in real space. Actual people have to cut actual steel in actual factories. The IT-world mythos of the entrepreneur-with-a-laptop-and-a-dream doesn't apply in real space.SPACs made good sense as a means of bundling a wildly high-risk venture in with some other lower risk companies and raising funds while providing an exit for the early investors. The problem, and in IMHO the cause of SPAC's souring the market, is that the company itself is just swept along for the ride to sink or swim until the next tranche of money can be found. Rocket companies are too risky for an IPO and inclusion in mutual funds, yet too large to fully be funded by angel investors and smaller institutional VCs. They fall in this donut hole where SPACs were the logical investment vehicle.
Another sign of the times@SatixFy_satcom / $EDNC SPAC deal valuation cut by 55%—$813M to $365MSatixfy must really need the cash@tomorrowio_ @D_Orbit cancelled their SPAC deals rather than lower valuation—makes me think they have better access to private capital than Satixfy
Success of a commercial launcher depends solely on cadence. The only customers who can support the kind of numbers these companies are throwing around are the megaconstellations. So if you aren’t launching Kuiper or OneWeb you’re going to struggle. Maybe Terran R will get there but I’d be surprised if any of the rest were big enough. If New Glenn and Starship both come to market it’s going to be very very tough for these smaller launchers.
Quote from: imprezive on 08/15/2022 04:02 pmSuccess of a commercial launcher depends solely on cadence. The only customers who can support the kind of numbers these companies are throwing around are the megaconstellations. So if you aren’t launching Kuiper or OneWeb you’re going to struggle. Maybe Terran R will get there but I’d be surprised if any of the rest were big enough. If New Glenn and Starship both come to market it’s going to be very very tough for these smaller launchers. It is unclear to me if heavy launchers will effectively serve constellations.The exception is Starlink V2, where the satellites are so large that Starship is required as a launcher. If Starship is delayed, Starlink will be sucking wind for a while.
Rising interest rates are making it more difficult for space startups to raise money, some warn, forcing them to seek alternative sources of funding.A series of rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, intended to halt the post-pandemic spike in inflation, could have the side effect of driving funding out of risky venture investments, such as space, because of the higher rates offered elsewhere.
Two years ago, I left my engineering position at Iceye to join a pre-seed space startup consisting of two people, one of which was me. As a newly minted CTO at a startup lacking capital, I was thrust into the fundraising game — with no deeper understanding of finance or business strategy than you’d expect of the average 40-year-old engineer with an oscilloscope.Daunted but undeterred, I set off into the depths of venture capitalism, strategy, marketing, pitches, PowerPoint slides, NewSpace, small talk, zero-sum games, and artificial politeness.
Carissa Christensen of BryceTech, in a finance panel at the Beyond Earth symposium: we are overinvested in launch compared to any existing demand signal; driven by visions of transformative human spaceflight by a few individuals.Nathan Whigham of EN Capital says he expects that we’ll see a wave of deals in a few years as space companies that went public through SPACs will be taken private by private equity firms.
Nathan Whigham of EN Capital says he expects that we’ll see a wave of deals in a few years as space companies that went public through SPACs will be taken private by private equity firms.
In a space commerce panel at #ascendspace, John Olds of SpaceWorks shows their NewSpace Index, which has fallen far below the overall market as well as a “Traditional Space” index they created. https://spaceworks.aero/commercial/new-space-index/Tejpaul Bhatia, chief revenue office of Axiom Space: you always hear that space is hard. You know what else is hard? Startups. #ascendspacePhil Ingle of Morgan Stanley notes that space is expensive and companies need capital; M&A deals among struggling companies may not solve that. #ascendspaceAsked about trillion-dollar markets, Olds offers one that is not one: launch. Even if launch rates go up, prices are going down; sees it as a $20B/year market at best. #ascendspace
In a finance panel at #ascendspace, Douglas Jarl of Barclays predicts a wave of M&A activity among space companies in the next 12-18 months, “if not sooner.” If not able to raise capital you need, he says, options are M&A or failure.Nathan Whigham of EN Capital agrees, and offers a specific prediction: if Astra gets delisted, it will get acquired by somebody quickly; several other space companies not far behind. #ascendspacePanel also sees opportunities for private equity rollups, like Redwire. Most exits for space companies in the near future, they predict, will be M&A or private equity deals, not public offerings. #ascendspaceIs there sufficient capital and interest in private markets today to fund space ventures with high capex like constellations and space stations? Panel is skeptical, but credit markets may be an option. #ascendspace
Virginia-based data relay company SpaceLink is shutting down, saying financial difficulty with Australian parent Electro Optic Systems made SpaceLink unable to raise needed external capital.SpaceLink had won contracts with NASA & DARPA, and an R&D agreement with the U.S. Army.SpaceLink VP Wendy Newman statement:“This is a good example of the trend for investors to take a more conservative approach to pre-revenue startups in today’s economic environment …”as “…timing should have been great for a company prepared to address the burgeoning market for real-time space relay communications.”
For satellite service providers and hardware builders, the question is not complicated or new:What’s your survival strategy when SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Kuiper constellations are fully operational?Both appear intent on creating their own ecosystems with proprietary standards, so forget selling much to them. Both appear able to go for many years, spending billions of dollars, before becoming profitable.Several possible answers were offered during The HTS Roundtable, organized Dec. 8 by c21...
For most anyone with money in the market, 2022 was a year to forget – and space stocks were no exception. While the sector has continued to grow, many of the companies who took the fast SPAC way out ran into a wall this year.Remember, these space SPAC names all came to market at about $10 a share. Now, seven such companies trade under $2 a share. Astra, Momentus and Spire each slipped under $1 in the past few months. Even shares of Rocket Lab and Planet – two of Wall Street’s favorite space de-SPACs, with some of the strongest revenue and cash positions – have given up half their go-public value.
The key theme for aerospace within financial markets has been the bifurcation of performance between the traditional aerospace and defense (A&D) sector and space SPACs. Despite the broader market’s abysmal performance this year, traditional A&D companies have outperformed phenomenally. Companies like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and BAE Systems are trading 15%–37%+ YTD. The sector has strengthened on increased demand in response to Russia’s longer-than-expected war in Ukraine and the growing threat posed by China, a military and space near-peer adversary.
Last year was rough for many space startups.Overall investment dropped 58 percent from its $47.4 billion peak in 2021 to $20.1 billion in 2022. Still, Chad Anderson, Space Capital managing partner, thinks the downturn will make the sector more resilient.“We see the shift away from momentum investing and back to a focus on fundamentals as a net positive for the space economy, since it will reward quality companies and discipline those that have weaker fundamentals and are struggling to execute,” Anderson said by email.
If it was easier to raise money, Plasmos might have a dedicated facility for testing rocket engines. Instead, the propulsion startup rented a speedboat restoration shop east of Los Angeles.There, “we managed to test something, and it was successful,” said Plasmos CEO Ali Baghchehsara. “We managed to create plasma in the engine and got high ionization using air.”After years of sky-high valuations and investor competition for shares of promising space startups, high interest rates and the threat of recession have made investors cautious. In response to a lack of new funding sources, space startups are cutting back on hiring, reducing travel and giving up leased office space.
Did you know that @esa and @euronext have created a European Space stock index? The index is called EN HELIOS SPACE and it is found here: https://live.euronext.com/en/product/indices/NLIX00000983-XPARIs it any good?A thread1/12 According to ESA the HELIOS SPACE index will be a "barometer", a "benchmark" and will "raise awareness" on space companies.But can the index fulfill this promise?https://commercialisation.esa.int/european-space-index/2/12Sadly no.I have found that about half the companies in the HELIOS SPACE index have a space business representing less than 1% of their total business. But since they are the largest in the index, they represent 75% of the index value.https://live.euronext.com/en/product/indices/NLIX00000983-XPAR/market-information#index-composition3/12Moreover: 50% of the index capitalisation is composed of companies involved in electronic components manufacturing, whose exposure to the market of space components is very small, in the order of a fraction of %.4/12My estimate is that less than 3% of the stocks included in the HELIOS SPACE index is driven by space activity. In other words, this index is unable to capture any trend affecting the space sector at large. Trends in aero and electroncs will drive most of its value.5/12I wish now to digress a little on some companies that are included, starting with the ones that are, in my opinion, completely unrelated to space. For instance @Lilium is an electric plane business. Why is it in the "space" index?6/12 Similarly @aerovironment "AeroVironment, Inc. is an American defense contractor headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, that designs and manufactures unmanned aerial vehicles. " what is it doing in the HELIOS SPACE index? It is not space, and it is not even European...7/12 And what about @TomTom ? Admittedly their business doesn't exist without GNSS signals, but that's it. TomTom's business is driven by a majority of non space factors (retail prices, car sales, chip supply/price, touch screen techn, consumer habits...). Why include it at all?8/12 And @fugro ? How much of their business is supported by satellite data? Looking at their wesite: very little. They are not even particularly know as being large customers for EO data.9/12So are there better options out there? Well in the US there are three well know ETFs labelled "space", and I have mixed feelings about two of them.10/12https://etfdb.com/themes/space-etfs/My estimate is that of the three ETFs, only UFO has a good relavance to space (60%)It is followed by ARKX (30%)SPEAR ALPHA is a bit like HELIOS SPACE, with less than 5% of its value being driven by space markets dynamics.11/12https://procureetfs.com/ufo/https://ark-funds.com/funds/arkx/And now, to complete the picture, let me recall the Newspace index by @spaceworks that brings together the newest space business listings on NASDAQ.This index is almost 100% 'space' (@virgingalactic is suborbital, despite the name).12/12 --end--https://www.spaceworks.aero/commercial/new-space-index/And you may have noted that I mentioned the wrong @SpaceWork account. My intention was to mention @SpaceWorksSEI of course. My apologies to both accounts.
Space startups will need to step up their fundraising efforts if they want to raise money this year from increasingly meticulous investors, according to a panel of early-stage space investment firms.A “dosage of reality” is trickling through the space industry, AE Industrial Partners vice president Tyler Letarte told the SmallSat Symposium Feb. 7 in Mountain View, California.“For a number of months in 2021, people saw some home-run deals,” Letarte said, “people saw some early investors be very successful, and you started seeing some new money come into that market.
Large defense companies are itching to buy space assets as part of the market is on the verge of a shake-out, executives discussing deal-making in the industry said Feb. 8.Phillip Ingle, a managing director in Morgan Stanley’s investment banking division, highlighted large “appetite for the big primes to get their hands on attractive space assets” during the SmallSat Symposium in Mountain View, California. U.S. Department of Defense budgets orientated “towards space are growing much more healthfully than other parts of the defense budget,” Ingle said, encouraging primes “to grow their space businesses because that’s where a lot of the growth is.”
I bit the bullet and bought 1,000 shares in RKLB. My thinking is that the current share price represents the actual worth of the company, whereas the former high price included some hype and buzz.There is a decent chance that the share price will rise, although nothing is sure.
And, on cue, Rocket Labs dropped 4% immediately after my purchase.
Funding to VC-backed space tech startups — defined here as space travel, satellite communication and aerospace — has dramatically decreased in the last year-plus, and this year is on pace for the lowest total dollars since 2020, according to Crunchbase data.Like most sectors, space tech funding rocketed to the stars in 2021, hitting an all-time high of $12.1 billion in more than 450 deals. The sector only saw about a 25% decline last year, when space tech startups raised $9 billion in just under 400 deals.However, this year has been a different story. With the year more than half over, the sector has witnessed only $2.4 billion of funding in just 172 deals.
A relevant article:Space Tech Funding Comes Back Down To Earth - CrunchbaseRelevant quote:QuoteFunding to VC-backed space tech startups — defined here as space travel, satellite communication and aerospace — has dramatically decreased in the last year-plus, and this year is on pace for the lowest total dollars since 2020, according to Crunchbase data.Like most sectors, space tech funding rocketed to the stars in 2021, hitting an all-time high of $12.1 billion in more than 450 deals. The sector only saw about a 25% decline last year, when space tech startups raised $9 billion in just under 400 deals.However, this year has been a different story. With the year more than half over, the sector has witnessed only $2.4 billion of funding in just 172 deals.As far as investing personal funds in space companies, I would treat any investments like I treat money that I use to gamble with. In other words if you aren't OK with throwing that money in a fire and walking away, then investing in space startups may not be the right thing for you.True story - I had been an Apple Computer user since 1989 when I bought a Macintosh SE, and I was sad when Steve Jobs left the company and Apple started drifting. Steve Jobs came back at the end of 1996, and I invested a couple of thousand in Apple stock in 1997 because I believed the company and wanted to support it. That story had a good outcome, but I was fine with the money going to zero.So invest for the passion, but only invest what doesn't matter to your future - because the odds are that your investment will go to $0.That said, if a non-profit gets created as part of the effort to colonize Mars with SpaceX, I'll be donating to it because I believe in the goal, not that I expect an ROI in my lifetime.
Impulse Space, the rocket engine company from SpaceX vet Tom Mueller, says it raised a $45 million Series A...some start-ups are still finding VC backing!
Quote from: Coastal Ron on 07/24/2023 06:00 am...True story - I had been an Apple Computer user since 1989 when I bought a Macintosh SE, and I was sad when Steve Jobs left the company and Apple started drifting. Steve Jobs came back at the end of 1996, and I invested a couple of thousand in Apple stock in 1997 because I believed the company and wanted to support it. That story had a good outcome, but I was fine with the money going to zero.So invest for the passion, but only invest what doesn't matter to your future - because the odds are that your investment will go to $0.That said, if a non-profit gets created as part of the effort to colonize Mars with SpaceX, I'll be donating to it because I believe in the goal, not that I expect an ROI in my lifetime.Your $2000 shares would be worth $2.5M today.
...True story - I had been an Apple Computer user since 1989 when I bought a Macintosh SE, and I was sad when Steve Jobs left the company and Apple started drifting. Steve Jobs came back at the end of 1996, and I invested a couple of thousand in Apple stock in 1997 because I believed the company and wanted to support it. That story had a good outcome, but I was fine with the money going to zero.So invest for the passion, but only invest what doesn't matter to your future - because the odds are that your investment will go to $0.That said, if a non-profit gets created as part of the effort to colonize Mars with SpaceX, I'll be donating to it because I believe in the goal, not that I expect an ROI in my lifetime.
One of the exceptions:https://twitter.com/timfernholz/status/1683511289287684096QuoteImpulse Space, the rocket engine company from SpaceX vet Tom Mueller, says it raised a $45 million Series A...some start-ups are still finding VC backing!
Rocket Labs dropped another 6% yesterday, so I am down 10% in 2 trading days.No idea what provoked the drop, maybe there is a problem with the next launch.
RKLB has a historical Beta near 1, but lately it is moving up and down in large increments. Is there a reason for the recent fluctuations, or is it an exaggerated random walk?If there is big unexpected news soon, we will know the answer.
It sure looks like the SPAC craze didn't do well for investors.
I probably lost a few thousand on Astra and Rocket Labs.
