VC Column

After a behemoth month of space-tech investment in February ($1.7b), global venture investment in space-tech fell back to earth in March with only $93.96m invested. Europe held three of the four largest investments this month: Multiverse Computing in Spain (€25m), Mbryonics in Ireland (€17.5m), and Blackwave in Germany ($6.6m), with South Africa’s Simera Sense (€13.5m) rounding out the top-four.

If the space-tech industry was lumbering towards the launchpad in January ($475m globally), then February was liftoff: space-tech startups raised a whopping $1.7b in funding in February.The month was bolstered by a massive $932m public-private investment into China’s Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology (SSST), but also featured a $355m investment into RocketLabs (US) and a €85m investment into UnseenLabs (France). These megadeals join 30 smaller deals in a historically strong month for spacetech startups worldwide.

2024 is off to a strong start for space-tech startups raising capital in the VC space, with over $475m USD (442m EUR) raised in January alone. At this pace, however, the annual space tech investment ecosystem projects to an annual $5.8b, a contraction versus 2023 levels of approximately $7.1b. Across 25 deals, and an average of $19m per deal, just under half of deals were located in the United States (7) and United Kingdom (5) with strong presence in Europe coming from France (3) and Italy (3).