The New Space Economy: The Next Generation of Critical Infrastructure

Tom Bailey:
Hello everyone, and welcome to today’s webinar. My name is Tom Bailey, Head of Research at HANetf. Before we get started, please note that this webinar is for professional investors only.

For those of you familiar with HANetf, you’ll know we have a strong interest in thematic ETFs, and arguably there’s no more exciting theme right now than space. It has obviously captured headlines this year and captured investors’ interest.

We were delighted this year to work with Seraphim Space to launch a new space-focused ETF, the Seraphim Space New Space UCITS ETF, which we think is a very unique proposition.

Crucially, Seraphim are one of the world’s leading specialist investors in space technology, with more than a decade of experience. You may know them from the space investment trust they run as well.

This new ETF brings their expertise into the UCITS ETF format and gives investors targeted exposure to the new space economy.

To explain the ETF, and more broadly how Seraphim think about the investment opportunity in space, I’m delighted today to be joined by Mark Boggett, CEO of Seraphim Space.

Mark will give a presentation and then we’ll go into a Q&A, so please do get your questions in throughout and we’ll be sure to get to as many as possible at the end.

With that, Mark, over to you.

Mark Boggett:
Great. I’m delighted to be on the webinar today to talk about my favourite subject: space.

So, why space?

The central proposition is that space technology, largely thanks to SpaceX, has moved from the margins into the mainstream.

The global economy is increasingly dependent on data, connectivity, positioning, observation and resilient infrastructure, and a growing proportion of those capabilities can now be delivered or enhanced from space.

AI makes that relationship even more powerful. Satellites create vast quantities of data, while AI helps turn that data into decisions.

We therefore see space not as an isolated vertical, but as an enabling layer facilitating capabilities across industries and megathemes — from defence and climate change to the drone economy, autonomous systems, IoT, smart cities and food security, to name just a few.

The ETF focuses on a new cohort of listed new-space companies that are seeking to commercialise that opportunity.

So, what is new space?

To understand the opportunity, it is useful to distinguish old space from new space.

Old space has achieved extraordinary things, including putting humans on the Moon. But it was generally characterised by large bespoke systems, long development cycles, very high costs and relatively few customers.

Examples include companies such as SES and Viasat, which for more than 30 years have built constellations of expensive satellites that provide communications to governments, cruise ships and planes.

I’m sure everybody on this webinar has had that plane internet experience.

These companies are still valued in billions of dollars but are losing business to companies such as Starlink, with its new-space communications constellation providing a better, lower-cost solution that actually works for airline passengers.

The catalyst for new space has been a fundamental reduction in the cost and complexity of doing business in space.

Rockets have changed launch economics, while miniaturisation has allowed more capability to be placed into smaller and cheaper satellites.

Together, these developments enable large constellations rather than individual satellites.

That shift matters because constellations can provide persistent connectivity, frequent imaging and near-real-time data. It is creating a digital infrastructure in the sky, equivalent to a new internet.

The opportunity is developing in three waves: now, next and the future.

The opportunity today is already tangible. We have ubiquitous connectivity and real-time Earth observation serving markets such as telecommunications, defence and agriculture.

The next phase is a converged orbital economy, including communications, computing, storage, networking, microgravity research and advanced manufacturing.

The longer-term opportunity includes areas such as space-based solar energy and access to lunar or asteroid resources.

What is compelling is the breadth of terrestrial industries that could be affected. These include telecommunications, AI, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, energy, natural resources and construction.

Seraphim’s proprietary market data identifies more than 5,000 companies globally across the new-space ecosystem.

Approximately 2,000 are already scaling their revenues, around 50 have attained valuations of $1 billion or more, making them unicorns, and around 50 are already publicly listed.

These figures are approximate, but the direction is clear.

This is no longer a handful of isolated ventures. There is now a global company formation engine feeding a potential pipeline from startups through growth-stage private unicorns and, finally, via IPOs into public markets.

That private pipeline is strategically important because it represents the flow of tomorrow’s listed constituents.

A meaningful public cohort has already emerged across launch, manufacturing, constellations, space stations, logistics and lunar systems.

The profile is unlike mature aerospace.

Many of these businesses are approximately a decade old, they have been listed for fewer than five years and remain only lightly covered by analysts.

They may be growing very rapidly, but profits at this stage are often limited and their valuations can be volatile.

That combination creates opportunity, but it also makes specialist assessment particularly important.

Investors need to distinguish between an exciting technology, a durable business model and a stock price capable of generating attractive returns.

Historically, investors have faced two imperfect choices.

The first is direct stock selection. That can create focused exposure, but requires considerable research and brings concentration and volatility.

The second is an existing space-themed ETF. These provide diversification, but on average around 50% of their holdings typically include legacy aerospace companies, defence conglomerates or businesses with only very limited economic exposure to the new-space market.

That results in thematic dilution.

Investors may believe they’re buying the new-space growth opportunity, but much of their capital is actually allocated elsewhere.

The new-space ETF has been designed to address that gap by combining passive access with specialist sector curation.

There are five pillars to the proposition.

The first is pure-play exposure: no aerospace primes, broad defence conglomerates or proxy holdings included merely for scale.

Second is conviction weighting. The index is not driven solely by market capitalisation. The weighting also reflects Seraphim’s assessment of the opportunity.

Third is specialist curation. The index is informed by a team focused entirely on space technology.

Fourth is private-market exposure. Through the Seraphim Space Investment Trust, investors can gain indirect exposure to more than 20 leading pre-IPO new-space companies.

And fifth is IPO capture. The methodology is designed to allow relevant new listings to enter the public-market portfolio relatively quickly.

The objective is to capture the new-space ecosystem of today while retaining a window into the potential leaders of tomorrow.

This tells you something about Seraphim, the organisation we created more than a decade ago.

The methodology is supported by more than a decade of sector experience. Seraphim has backed more than 150 space-tech companies across more than 30 countries and has been identified as one of the most prolific space-tech investors globally.

The platform spans accelerators, private funds, the listed Seraphim Space Investment Trust and now ETFs.

We’ve built a strong track record, including 10 companies that have achieved billion-dollar unicorn status and six that have completed IPOs.

The real advantage is not simply the number of investments. It’s the pattern recognition created by seeing companies, technologies, customers and management teams across the entire global space-tech market.

It is that insight that informs how the index identifies relevant and potentially higher-growth exposure.

Most public-market investors first encounter a space company when it prepares to list.

Seraphim encounters businesses much earlier, from company formation through the accelerator stage, venture stage and private growth-funding stage, and potentially into the public markets.

Having engaged with more than 5,000 private space companies, we can compare emerging public businesses against a much wider base of private-market companies across the landscape.

This provides visibility into where technology, customer demand and competitive intensity may be heading.

The point is that specialist knowledge does not remove risk, but it can create a more informed framework for selecting and weighting exposure.

Around 20% of the portfolio constituents were backed privately by Seraphim before subsequently listing on public markets. As such, we have an insider’s perspective on some of these businesses.

The index begins with objective eligibility criteria.

Companies must trade on major exchanges, have meaningful space operations or be developing novel space capabilities, have been founded after 1990, exceed the stated market-cap threshold and meet minimum trading-liquidity requirements.

Eligible companies are then scored across six dimensions: their new-space focus, sub-sector alignment, business model, geographic alignment, innovation and impact, and finally their revenue-growth trajectory.

Revenue growth receives the greatest weighting, while innovation and impact also receive additional emphasis.

The resulting portfolio is tiered. Tier one represents 60% of the index, tier two represents 30%, and the final 10% is allocated to the Seraphim Space Investment Trust to provide exposure to private companies.

It is therefore systematic and rules-based, but informed by specialist domain knowledge rather than relying purely on conventional industry classifications.

Our aim is to amplify exposure to companies with genuine new-space relevance and stronger growth characteristics.

The constituents can also be viewed through three strategic lenses.

First, defence and resilience. Governments increasingly view sovereign space infrastructure as mission-critical for communications, intelligence and national resilience.

Second, big-tech convergence. Direct-to-device communication, AI-enabled Earth data and potentially orbital computing are bringing space infrastructure closer to the strategic priorities of the world’s largest technology companies, such as Google and Amazon.

Third is the in-space economy. Low-Earth orbit and cislunar space are developing into new economic frontiers across logistics, communications, manufacturing, energy and infrastructure.

These themes are interconnected.

Defence demand can fund early infrastructure. Commercial scale can reduce unit costs, and lower costs can unlock new applications.

The portfolio is therefore not dependent upon one end market. It provides exposure to several reinforcing sources of demand.

The portfolio also covers the breadth of the value chain, including launch and access, satellite connectivity, Earth observation, manufacturing and emerging in-space services.

That matters because the new-space economy requires an interconnected stack: rockets to reach orbit, hardware to operate there, networks to move data and applications to create value for customers.

The investment trust adds another layer through exposure to private and pre-IPO businesses.

Although this creates diversification across the ecosystem, it remains a concentrated thematic investment focused specifically on new space.

Looking at some individual examples, the largest position is the investment trust, which provides the private-market component.

SpaceX adds exposure to scaled launch and satellite connectivity.

Voyager represents the development of a new generation of space primes and commercial space stations.

HawkEye 360 and BlackSky provide differentiated forms of space-derived intelligence.

AST SpaceMobile provides exposure to direct-to-device connectivity.

Firefly and Intuitive Machines provide exposure to launch and cislunar activity.

Redwire provides enabling space infrastructure, while Amazon contributes exposure through its satellite-connectivity activities.

The portfolio is deliberately targeted, so investors should understand both the opportunity and the concentration implied by those weights.

These weights are also a point-in-time snapshot rather than permanent allocations.

This is an emerging technology theme, so the risks need to be explicit.

The best way to bring the strategy to life is to look beyond some of the best-known names and examine several holdings representing different parts of the new-space economy.

I’ll start with the Seraphim Space Investment Trust, which acts as a bridge between the public ETF and the private new-space growth market.

It is the world’s first listed space-tech fund and today has more than $1 billion in NAV. It is also a constituent of the FTSE 250.

It has more than 20 holdings spanning Earth observation, satellite communications and navigation.

Its strategic value is providing early exposure to private growth-stage companies that may form part of the next generation of public listings.

One significant holding operates the world’s largest synthetic-aperture-radar constellation.

Radar imagery can provide observation regardless of cloud cover or darkness, giving the capability relevance across resilience, intelligence and commercial applications.

The company is valued at around $12 billion and has indicated its intention to IPO.

The investment trust therefore expands the opportunity set beyond companies already available on public exchanges.

AST SpaceMobile illustrates the convergence of space infrastructure with one of the world’s largest terrestrial markets: mobile communications.

Its ambition is to build a cellular network in space capable of connecting directly to standard smartphones.

The consumer proposition is simple: extending mobile coverage beyond terrestrial towers without requiring specialist handsets or new software.

It is compatible with the existing global phone infrastructure and has partnerships with more than 50 mobile-network operators collectively serving approximately three billion subscribers.

The attraction is not merely satellite connectivity. It is access to established distribution partners and an enormous installed device base.

The execution challenge is correspondingly substantial, involving technology development, capital and commercial-scaling risk.

But if successful, the satellites effectively become cell towers in orbit and the addressable market becomes the terrestrial telecoms market.

Seraphim backed the company in 2019. It IPO’d in 2021 and today is valued at around $25 billion.

The next company is HawkEye 360.

HawkEye demonstrates how space can create an intelligence layer that does not rely on conventional imagery.

Its satellites detect and geolocate radio-frequency signals from sources including ships, aircraft, radars and communications devices.

That can expose activity that may otherwise be hidden, supporting defence, maritime awareness and the detection of illegal behaviour.

The company serves the US Department of War and allied governments across four continents.

From an investment perspective, an important feature is the potential for high-margin recurring subscription data revenue.

It also demonstrates dual-use potential, with applications extending from defence into environmental monitoring and commercial applications.

This is a good example of new space where low-cost satellites provide the collection infrastructure, but the recurring value comes from the AI-enhanced intelligence delivered to the customer.

Seraphim backed the company in 2021.

Next, we turn to Voyager, which represents the emergence of a new generation of space prime contractors.

It combines spacecraft hardware, components, propulsion and surveillance capabilities, supported by a buy-and-build strategy.

Its most visible programme is Starlab, a proposed commercial space station.

NASA plans to retire the International Space Station around 2030, and Starlab is one of the projects selected for potential participation in the commercial replacement market.

That makes Voyager a useful example of three themes: defence exposure, big-tech convergence and the in-space economy.

Seraphim backed the company in 2023 and it subsequently IPO’d in 2025.

Finally, Firefly provides exposure across launch, orbital mobility and lunar services.

Its Alpha rocket is designed to deliver small satellites into orbit, while its orbital vehicles address last-mile payload delivery.

Its lunar landers extend that capability to the Moon.

The most tangible proof point is Blue Ghost, which successfully landed on the Moon in March 2025 and completed more than 14 days of lunar-surface operations.

Firefly therefore provides a relatively rare public-market route into the developing cislunar economy.

These case studies demonstrate that new space is not just one market. It is a connected economy spanning communications, intelligence, infrastructure, launch and operations beyond Earth.

That concludes my presentation, and I’ll now open questions to the floor.

Tom Bailey:
Thank you, Mark.

We have around 15 to 20 minutes for Q&A, so please do keep your questions coming.

The first question is: what have you noticed so far about the structural differences in creating and maintaining a portfolio for the investment trust versus the ETF?

Mark Boggett:
They are completely different but complementary.

The portfolio for the investment trust is a portfolio of private companies that we need to source, identify, undertake due diligence on and invest in.

We then sit on the boards of those companies, supporting their growth over numerous years, hopefully to the point where they IPO, at which point we typically step down from their boards.

For the ETF, we’ve used our experience in the space market, our understanding of competitive dynamics and our view of where the growth areas are.

We’ve then selected companies to be included in the index, narrowing that down to new-space companies only.

We weight those companies using a methodology that includes our view of how the company is likely to progress, both in terms of the impact of its technology and its potential revenue growth over the years ahead.

The index is reset annually.

So it is passive, but it is a concentrated, weighted index. The two approaches are complementary, but very different.

Tom Bailey:
I’m going to combine two audience questions because they’re asking broadly the same thing.

First, what was the process for deciding on the 10% allocation to the investment trust within the ETF?

And secondly, let’s assume the ETF is very successful in gathering assets. Does the liquidity in the investment trust facilitate maintaining that 10% exposure?

Mark Boggett:
First of all, how did we determine the 10%?

As I identified earlier, there are about 2,000 private companies in the space market already rapidly growing their revenues, compared with around 50 public companies.

The overall space market is therefore heavily weighted in favour of private companies versus public companies.

When we were thinking about how to weight the holding of the Seraphim Space Investment Trust, that was a guiding framework for us.

We ultimately decided on 10% rather than a much larger figure because we wanted individual private companies within the trust to still represent a reasonable effective weight within the overall strategy.

For example, one of the private companies I highlighted ends up having an effective exposure broadly comparable with some of the already publicly listed constituents.

That was the reason for determining that balance.

We reset this annually in December, so during the course of each year we can determine whether 10% remains appropriate or whether it should be scaled up or down.

That also helps answer the liquidity question.

We believe there is sufficient daily liquidity in the investment trust to more than adequately cover the requirements of a growing ETF.

And because the holding can be adjusted annually, we also have the ability to reduce the exposure to the investment trust over time if required.

Tom Bailey:
Another audience question is more thematic.

The Economist ran an article today on improvements to GPS, validating much of what you’ve been saying about the industry.

It also suggests there are now a lot of developments occurring as more companies become switched on to the prospects for satellites and space technology.

Does that mean it is becoming harder to pick the winners?

Mark Boggett:
One of the largest companies within the Seraphim Space Investment Trust is developing a private GPS network.

It recently closed a $175 million funding round to build hundreds of satellites for that constellation.

It has also recently been awarded spectrum by the FCC to use GPS spectrum, meaning its satellites can become visible to billions of devices already in the market.

Why is that important?

Its capability is centimetre-accurate versus roughly one- to ten-metre accuracy for government GPS.

More importantly, the connection to those satellites can be secured to military-grade standards, whereas government GPS signals can be spoofed, meaning you cannot necessarily rely on the data being received from an individual satellite.

Those innovations are extremely important because our autonomous future requires centimetre-level accuracy and highly resilient connectivity.

That applies to autonomous cars, drones, humanoids and robots further down the line.

One of the things we are therefore very focused on is identifying and backing emerging leaders.

One reason that is so important is that these companies are able to build very large intellectual-property portfolios around the systems they are developing.

We also focus on vertically integrated companies.

They design the satellites, build the satellites themselves, operate those satellites in space, develop their own software and AI, and then have direct relationships with end customers.

Customer information then feeds back rapidly into the design process.

That feedback loop allows them to accelerate away from competitors and can also create further intellectual property and patents ahead of those competitors.

When we assess a market opportunity, looking at the company’s intellectual property and determining how strongly positioned it is relative to competitors is therefore one of the key elements we use when selecting companies.

We’re focused on identifying companies building very large patent portfolios that we believe create significant competitive moats around their capabilities.

Tom Bailey:
You mentioned vertical integration there.

SpaceX is obviously a good example in terms of controlling launch, satellites and the end service.

Is this a model that other new-space companies are following, or are vertically integrated businesses specifically the sort of new-space companies you’re particularly interested in?

Mark Boggett:
If you look at the successful new-space companies, this is very much a model that is being followed.

If you look at the 10 unicorns we’ve achieved over the last decade, the common feature between the majority of them is that they are vertically integrated.

By combining design, build and operation, developing both hardware and software, and having direct relationships with end customers, they create a much more rapid feedback loop.

That feedback loop allows them to accelerate away from competitors.

It also tends to attract investors.

The companies that are leading the way and driving change most quickly tend to capture a significant amount of the capital being raised within a particular market opportunity.

As a consequence, it tends to be the market leader with the greatest access to capital that captures the largest share of the addressable market.

It is a tried and tested approach.

It does increase risk for the company because it is developing components and key parts of the supply chain internally.

But once you get beyond that issue, the benefits of vertical integration can be huge.

That is particularly relevant given the geopolitical challenges facing the world.

We are now seeing significant changes in supply chains as different regions try to source components and capabilities domestically.

Vertically integrated companies are already one step ahead in that regard.

Tom Bailey:
On this old-space versus new-space question, you draw a very clear distinction between the two.

Are new-space companies essentially disruptors that will replace incumbents entirely, or does value simply shift towards different parts of the space economy?

Mark Boggett:
It is very challenging for old-space companies that have spent three decades building exquisite satellites costing $1 billion or more for government customers to transition into a world where, rather than producing one or two billion-dollar satellites per year, companies are producing thousands of satellites costing anything from a few hundred thousand dollars to a few million dollars.

There is massive cannibalisation of their own businesses required to make that change.

I’ve been in this business for 10 years and I’ve yet to see an old-space company that has successfully made that transition.

Many are investing in new-space companies and looking to partner with them, but we haven’t yet seen many examples of old-space companies acquiring new-space businesses either.

There remains a very big difference between the traditional old-space players and the nimble new-space companies.

The latter are embracing converging technologies from adjacent sectors, leveraging private capital to accelerate their growth and introducing new business models that are completely changing markets.

Going back to the example I gave earlier, traditional geostationary communications companies might use individual satellites to provide services to the airline industry.

SpaceX uses a distributed satellite constellation to provide that same service at a much lower cost, with much higher bandwidth and greater reliability.

As a consequence, it is winning a significant proportion of that market.

It is very challenging for incumbent geostationary companies to respond because the price point and capabilities of the competition are difficult to match.

Tom Bailey:
We have another question about liquidity.

Is there any liquidity risk due to the private nature of the companies held within the investment trust?

Perhaps it’s worth explaining the closed-end nature of an investment trust, how the vehicle works and how that interacts with the ETF buying and selling shares in the trust.

Mark Boggett:
An investment trust is a structure that has been around for more than 100 years.

There are roughly 300 investment trusts on the UK market.

These trusts can invest in public companies, private companies or a combination of both.

Where they invest in private companies, those private companies are typically valued on a quarterly basis.

The values of those businesses are aggregated to produce a new net asset value, which is then released to the market.

The market trades shares in the investment trust daily, either at a premium or discount to that net asset value.

Investors therefore take a view on whether the underlying NAV is growing or declining, and that is reflected in the market price of the shares.

The liquidity of investment trusts tends to be influenced by their size.

As mentioned, the Seraphim Space Investment Trust is a constituent of the FTSE 250 and its AUM has reached approximately $1 billion.

We therefore believe there is sufficient daily liquidity to provide the ETF with the ability to acquire the positions it requires through the market.

Tom Bailey:
Thanks, Mark.

I also want to go back to the methodology.

You’re not simply selecting companies with the largest amount of revenue derived from space.

A lot goes into determining which companies you consider to be strong new-space businesses, and then you’re also taking a view on those companies as businesses.

How do those elements interact in the methodology when you’re looking at the business and technology sides?

Mark Boggett:
We’ve spent the last decade doing this.

Our entire business is focused on identifying trends in the space market and investing in them early, selecting the right technologies and the right management teams.

We’ve demonstrated over the last decade that we are competent at doing that.

Of the companies we have backed over that period, 10 have become unicorns, six have IPO’d, two have had trade sales and we’ve had only three failures.

That gives us an understanding of some of the characteristics required for businesses to grow.

When evaluating companies for the index, we therefore assess them across a range of factors.

The first is their exposure to the new-space market and the revenues they derive from it.

That removes a significant proportion of companies we believe are lower-growth and more representative of old space.

We then look at sub-sector relevance and long-term alignment with the technology themes we consider most important.

Companies that are less aligned with those themes receive a lower score.

There is then a business-quality assessment.

That draws on our considerable experience evaluating business models and allows us to give higher scores to the companies we believe are more likely to succeed.

There are then two areas that we overweight.

One is the innovation of the product being developed and its strategic importance and impact.

That is a more subjective measure based on our knowledge of the global market, where that company sits within it and the impact we believe it could have over time.

We place additional weighting on that because we believe it is particularly important.

Finally, and most importantly, we identify companies demonstrating revenue growth.

We overweight businesses where we believe the revenue-growth opportunity is attractive relative to the company’s valuation at the point when the index is set.

In practice, this means we may overweight companies such as Voyager, AST SpaceMobile or HawkEye 360, while underweighting businesses we believe have a lower growth profile but which still fit the new-space remit.

At the end of each year we carry out a new evaluation of all the companies.

That can result in considerable changes to the portfolio from year to year.

We think one year is the appropriate amount of time to allow these companies to execute against their plans and for that growth to be demonstrated.

Tom Bailey:
Thank you, Mark.

We’re around 45 minutes past the hour, so we’ll draw it to a close.

If anyone has any final questions, please send them through and we can follow up.

Thank you, Mark. That was fascinating, and I’m sure the audience found it interesting as well.

If anyone wants a follow-up meeting with Mark, please get in touch with your HANetf representative.

We’ll also be sending the presentation deck to everyone who attended so you can look at the material in more detail.

With that, thank you, Mark, and thank you to everyone in the audience.

Mark Boggett:
Thanks for your interest, everyone.