MW Space investing is heating up as SpaceX rockets toward a record-breaking IPO
By William Gavin
Hype around Elon Musk, a major moon mission and space-based data centers is driving interest in the sector
SpaceX is capturing the imaginations of retail investors, according to one expert. That could help drive another wave of innovation.
Investors aren't waiting for Elon Musk and SpaceX to go public to invest in the so-called space economy, which is already hot, according to a new report.
A record $36 billion was invested in the space economy from January through March, compared with just $6.7 billion in the same period a year earlier, the venture-capital firm Space Capital said Tuesday. The second quarter of 2025, when investment reached $26.4 billion, was the previous best quarter, according to the firm's data.
Space Capital's report factors in companies developing infrastructure, distributors that manage data and the companies that apply that data. It's that last group - applications - that accounted for most of the investment last quarter, at $25.3 billion. Much of it was attributed to Waymo, the robotaxi operator backed by Alphabet $(GOOGL)$ $(GOOG)$ that raised $16 billion in February.
Excluding Waymo, $20 billion was still invested across nearly 150 companies tracked by Space Capital last quarter. That milestone has only been hit a few times since 2009, the earliest year in which the firm has data available.
First-quarter investment was "driven by a wave of applications and distribution companies racing to leverage space infrastructure for physical intelligence, robotics and [artificial-intelligence]," Space Capital said in a statement. The firm added that SpaceX's expected initial public offering has "forced a reckoning among allocators" who don't currently have exposure to the market.
SpaceX is reportedly attempting to raise $75 billion or more at a valuation of $1.75 trillion, which could make it the biggest IPO in history. Some experts, including Space Capital's Chad Anderson, have said that it could drive up interest in other space stocks, making them more attractive.
Read: Why SpaceX could trade like a meme stock after its blockbuster IPO
Adding to the hype is Morgan Stanley, which over the weekend released a list of 60 stocks spread across seven sectors - such as propulsion and fuels, as well as satellite operators and services - that allow investors to play the space trade. The "Space 60" shows that companies like Rocket Lab (RKLB) aren't the only way to invest in the sector.
Chipmakers like STMicroelectronics $(STM)$ made the list, as did rare-earths producer MP Materials (MP) and Linde $(LIN)$, a supplier of industrial gases. Morgan Stanley also called out a slew of satellite companies, including AST SpaceMobile $(ASTS)$ and Planet Labs $(PL)$, as well as Globalstar $(GSAT)$, a reported acquisition target of both SpaceX and Amazon.com (AMZN).
"Space is back in a big way," Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said in a note to clients. "A combination of scientific advancements, geopolitics and economics have rekindled investor attention on the space theme to the highest levels we have seen since launching the Morgan Stanley Space Team nearly a decade ago."
SpaceX and several rivals are exploring new ways to monetize space, including putting data centers in orbit. Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin and at least one startup have filed draft plans with regulators to launch tens of thousands of these satellites into orbit, while SpaceX aims to launch up to a million. Nvidia (NVDA), too, has cheered on the concept.
Those satellites could provide a solution to the increasing demand, driven largely by AI, for cheap power. In a statement, Space Capital described orbital data centers becoming viewed as a credible idea the "most significant structural shift of the quarter."
In addition to the hype around SpaceX, the industry is benefiting from the successful completion of the most ambitious human spaceflight in decades. On Friday, four astronauts splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California after completing a flyby trip around the moon for NASA's Artemis II mission, which traveled farther from Earth than any other manned space mission in history.
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The mission was the second of the Artemis program, which aims to put humans back on the moon for the first time since the 1970s and prove the U.S.'s space superiority over rivals, namely China. NASA is already projected to have spent more than $100 billion on Artemis, and plans to invest tens of billions of dollars more to develop infrastructure for moon missions with help from commercial entities.
Artemis "captures the imagination," according to Laura Rippy, managing partner at Alumni Ventures, which has investments in several space and defense companies. SpaceX has a similar effect on the average retail investor, she noted.
"You combine the two of them and stir the pot, and that really primes the pump for the next generation of innovators to see space as the place they should put their brains, their energy, their ideas," Rippy previously told MarketWatch, calling the dynamic a "space rush."
"That is what fires up innovation and the startup economy," Rippy added.
A few space-sector firms have already gone public or filed registration statements this year. Satellite firm York Space Systems $(YSS)$ went public in January and has been praised by one analyst as being "built for the space megatrend." Canadian satellite firm MDA Space $(MDA)$ in March completed a U.S. IPO about five years after it debuted on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Signals-intelligence firm HawkEye 360 filed its paperwork last week and plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "HAWK". The company primarily caters to government customers, with the U.S. government accounting for 61% of its revenue. Rippy, whose Alumni Ventures is an investor in HawkEye, said the company is "kind of like Palantir (PLTR) for satellite signals."
See: This might be the best time for you to load up on Big Tech stocks
-William Gavin
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April 14, 2026 07:00 ET (11:00 GMT)
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