In his latest column for VentureBeat.com, Valery Komissarov, a VC at the Skolkovo Foundation, outlines the top three areas in space tech investment right now.
One of the most attractive areas for investors right now is satellite imagery analytics, says Komissarov. Photo: Pixabay.
Six weeks ago, I wrote about skyrocketing VC funding in space tech companies. But according to brand new data from CB Insights, 2016 has actually seen a drop in investments following the 2015 surge I outlined.
Moreover, some areas that VCs considered highly promising a year or two ago are now considered overhyped (for example, smallsat launchers and earth observation microsatellites).
However, despite the drop in funding, there are some areas of space tech that remain promising and that have remained largely under investors’ radars so far.
1. Manufacturing technologies
Historically, advances in materials and manufacturing were critical to enabling space exploration. For instance, a number of discoveries in thermal coating materials in the 1950s made it possible to design reentry vehicles and enabled manned spaceflight in 1961 by Yuri Gagarin.
We may see something similar play out again really soon in the current space industry. Lux Capital partner Shahin Farshchi, an investor in hot space tech startups Planet and Orbital Insight, told me: “In the near term, I expect the adoption of existing metal alloy printing methods to improve the economics of traditional space businesses. In the long term, I expect metal alloy printing processes to get faster, cheaper, and combined with robotics and automation. These capabilities will make the benefits of space accessible to everyone as we have previously witnessed in semiconductors and electronics.”
Read the full article at VentureBeat.com, where it was first published.