Mark Fielding (00:00)
in the top funding for the space industry 2026 number 10 Starcloud. $170 million. on today's show we're going to do a countdown of the other nine players in this field. i feel a little bit like Seraphim investments jeremy.
Jeremy Gilbertson (00:19)
I feel a little bit like Casey Kasem, top 40. So this is exciting. This is exciting. We've got 10 companies we're going to run down. You've already hit the first one, Star what a raise for those guys. Got a lot planned for the year. Hopefully we can have them back on the show. But man, $1.1 billion valuation that's pretty impressive.
Mark Fielding (00:40)
a sign of the optimism and the belief that perhaps all data centers will be in space. So Jeremy I will roll over to you. in the charts. who's in at number nine? Yeah that's why I gave it to you. So XONA, XONA?
Jeremy Gilbertson (00:53)
How do I pronounce this? Yeah, it's unfair, dude. Yeah,
Xona Space, I'm gonna go with XONA. XONASPACE.COM if you wanna hear more about these guys. But again, this is about infrastructure. Infrastructure is always the bigger piece to the puzzle that
industries can scale on and we're talking about space infrastructure here. We're talking about the ability to consider a potential alternative to how we get around and how we coordinate. Coordination is a big human thing we talk about. why are these guys looking at something different than GPS?
Mark Fielding (01:34)
Global Navigation Satellite System, the GNNS, is the umbrella term for all satellite navigation systems of which GPS is one.
And XONA, are launching satellites, a constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit that deliver stronger, more precise, and I like this, encrypted positioning signals than existing GPS systems.
Jeremy Gilbertson (01:57)
potentially giving us a little more autonomy on who we give our location to potentially. So looking at this right now, the basis not the basis of their success, but a real chunk of their momentum has come from the US Space Force that I don't know, I guess they put in about 20 million in government funding tied in with 30 million private capital, right? What was their raise?
Mark Fielding (02:03)
Perhaps.
Jeremy Gilbertson (02:20)
Was that their full raise? Or what are the numbers look like for these guys?
Mark Fielding (02:23)
They got $170 million. So we put Star Cloud in 10th. They could have been in joint ninth, however you wanna play this game, but $170 million. That's a Series C, so they're a bit further down the road than Star Cloud. But in terms of actual products, the company plans to launch six additional satellites on a SpaceX rideshare later this year.
full constellation of 258 satellites planned over the next few years. again, we're talking about potential.
Jeremy Gilbertson (02:54)
Listeners stay in touch with thinking on paper to at our Kessler syndrome dashboard as we run up against the bottlenecks predicted by a pretty brilliant man. Yeah, these guys sound pretty interesting. They got some backing, potential defense contracts. A lot of things happen on the heels of a defense contract, the internet, which we are broadcasting and recording.
to and from right now is brought to you by a DARPA experiment way back in the day. Okay, so the next one,
Mark Fielding (03:26)
In at number 8. Already made the cover of Time Magazine and playing some games with Formula 1 Racing Jeremy. who is in at number 8 on the top Space Industry Funding Countdown?
Jeremy Gilbertson (03:37)
Number eight.
Number eight on the top 10 space funding countdown is TOMORROW IO, coming in at number eight. guys not just partnered. This isn't like a sponsorship with with Formula One. Apparently Formula One is using their infrastructure to understand real time weather as it would affect racing safety of the racers, the cars, the crews, all of that stuff. That's a pretty big
Mark Fielding (03:51)
No.
Jeremy Gilbertson (04:04)
That's a pretty big signal to a pretty powerful piece of infrastructure.
Mark Fielding (04:09)
Yep, the FIA, that's Formula One and all regulated motorsport, the governing body, is a commercial space weather platform into its operations using TOMORROW for real-time race decisions in 2026.
is being used.
Jeremy Gilbertson (04:27)
JetBlue is using it in airports. They were, in 2024 Time's top 100, the time 100 most influential companies of 2024. What are the numbers look like here?
Mark Fielding (04:38)
Uber, Fox
Sports, Ford, Denny's, whatever that is that sounds like an American pizza joint or something.
Jeremy Gilbertson (04:44)
Denny's,
no, Denny's is a breakfast joint, man. It's a breakfast joint, yeah.
Mark Fielding (04:48)
So
nip into 8th place with a $175 million raise, financing led by Stonecourt Capital Deep Sky.
Jeremy Gilbertson (05:02)
Yeah, this and this pushes the valuation of the third company on the list and we're only at number eight to another billion dollar valuation with a B for Space Tech. Guys, if you're listening, you're listening, you're thinking about all Space Tech, we're way far away. This is science fiction. This is this and that. There's going to be major inflection points in Space Tech in investment. We'll have to get our buddy at Seraphim back on and see what he thinks of all these.
Mark Fielding (05:29)
And just to be clear on that, so they are, it's okay, a confirmed unicorn valuation, one billion. of this top 10, only three of the companies, TOMORROW, Star Cloud, and we can't tell you the one until we get there, has a confirmed valuation, so we're not using the valuation, we're using the raise amount to build this top 10. Which makes number one very, very, very interesting, so stick with us for number one, because it's
Jeremy Gilbertson (05:51)
Alright
Mark Fielding (05:56)
Send some ripples through the atmosphere. Yes!
Jeremy Gilbertson (05:59)
So as we bounce around the globe, Mark, since you're more
on this side of the world, why don't you tell us about who's in at number seven?
Mark Fielding (06:07)
Yeah, surprising. We're heading to Spain. CEO and founder Raul Torres and PLD Space. PLD is a launch service provider. focusing on the European market. Its first commercial contract is with Satelloid, a Spanish 5G satellite company, and that's going to launch two direct-to-device satellites in 2027. Interesting.
Mitsubishi Electric invested $50 million as part of the total $210 million for PLD. and they invested so they get priority access to launch slots for its planned satellite constellation serving Japan and the Asian markets. Go Europe!
Jeremy Gilbertson (06:51)
So this is an interesting, yeah, this is an interesting positioning.
Go Europe, this is an interesting positioning, right? So this is more like the Uber black car service than jumping in with 90 other people on a Falcon rocket, right? This is more targeted to people who want a dedicated launch. Who wouldn't want to share space at this point? Who wouldn't want to share space? That's really interesting.
Mark Fielding (07:13)
okay, that makes sense.
Yeah, it is. And I like the European angle and I like that it's not just America in this top 10. So, go Spain.
Jeremy Gilbertson (07:28)
What is the funding? Funding looks like what $210 million or 180 million pounds?
Mark Fielding (07:32)
210 million there,
it's, euros, it's a Series C, so again, they're a bit later on but $50 million of that is coming from Mitsubishi Electric, again, for those priority. It is a big jump.
Jeremy Gilbertson (07:36)
you're us.
It's a big junk and big jump, big junk.
It's a big jump and also like you said Mitsubishi is essentially acquiring the ability to have some dedicated slots for the stuff that they want to throw up in Leo and all the fun stuff. Okay, number seven. There you have it.
Mark Fielding (07:59)
And in at number 6, Stokespace.
Jeremy Gilbertson (08:03)
Dude, a skater stoner name. Stoke. Stokespace. What up, man? How do you feel about that?
Mark Fielding (08:11)
I
like it there, co-founder Andy Lapser has raised a gargantuan $350 million. and what's interesting about Stokespace is that's an extension on previous funding. so they've now raised $1.34 billion. That's not valuation, that's how much they've raised. So they're doing something
Pretty big, Jeremy, you would think, for that amount of funding. What is Stokes Base doing?
Jeremy Gilbertson (08:44)
Well, there, check this out.
According to my research here, there are five companies approved to launch national security satellites. have SpaceX, have ULA, you have Blue Origin, you have Rocket Lab, and guess who? Stoke Space.
Mark Fielding (09:01)
the US Space Force selected Stoke for its national security space launch Phase 3 Lane 1 making it eligible to compete for up to $5.6 billion in national security launch contracts. placing it alongside SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab
only one of five approved providers. However, per the Congressional Research Service, Stoke and Rocket Lab must complete at least one successful launch before they can receive actual mission assignments. So they are approved to compete but not yet approved to fly government payloads.
Jeremy Gilbertson (09:33)
Okay, so you.
Yeah, right. And this is fully reusable is what they're what they're running towards in their first attempt this year, I guess. Have you heard any dates on when they're when they're going to launch?
Mark Fielding (09:47)
No,
they want to carry 3000 kilos to Leo. First orbital attempt is 2026. so at the time of recording I don't believe that they have
Jeremy Gilbertson (09:56)
Betting on something that hasn't gotten off the ground yet. That's a lot of money. But guess it takes a lot of money to pull this kind of stuff off, man.
Mark Fielding (10:02)
say the words national security in 2026 and the money comes flooding in. They've been selected by the US Space Force. They've been mentioned in the same sentences as SpaceX and Blue Origin and Rocket Labs. let's wait and see, watch this space. Talking of space, we're moving up the charts. We're going into the top half and at number five.
We have Axiom Space, Axiom is special in this in that they've sent astronauts to the ISS four times. They hold NASA's only active moonwalking suit contract.
Jeremy Gilbertson (10:40)
This is Land and Expand, man. It's Land and Expand. That's right. That's right. private mission.
Mark Fielding (10:41)
and land and expand.
How much does
it cost? like this. How much did it cost? So Axiom has completed four missions to the ISS, AX1 through AX4 between 2022 and 2025, selling seats at approximately...
Jeremy Gilbertson (10:58)
$55 million. Just yeah, just chump change for you, Mr. Fielding.
Mark Fielding (11:05)
Did you watch the Artemis launch? I can't think of anything more terrifying than sitting on that rocket.
Jeremy Gilbertson (11:11)
After paying $55 million for it. So these guys are pushing. OK, so space suits, I get it. There's a market for those, although relatively limited. they're they're selling or doing those things. But they're also building freaking space So we talked in. We talked in space to grow about like space stations have to be a piece of the infrastructure for want to do half the things we want to do in space.
Mark Fielding (11:14)
I mean, I like to look at it, it's beautiful.
Yeah, that's what got my eye, yeah.
Jeremy Gilbertson (11:38)
The ISS is getting ready to be retired, I believe.
Mark Fielding (11:41)
Yeah, there surely will be a private sector built replacement for that and Axiom will be in of a queue.
Jeremy Gilbertson (11:50)
Did we talk through the numbers on this one? $350 million in a mix of equity and debt. A lot of money rolling into this space, into space space. All based on the Mark Fielding's quote, space, we're going.
Mark Fielding (11:55)
Yep, so 350 million.
There is a lot of excitement and it's not just for us space nuts. It's all over, at least in the UK, it's all over the media. Everybody is aware of what NASA are doing and where there are eyes, there is money.
Jeremy Gilbertson (12:26)
That is correct. Man, we're nearly cracking the top three. Nearly cracking the top three. We're on to number four. Number four, this is a company you probably haven't heard of. I know Space Force has. A couple of other people have. And this is more infrastructure again, I think, if I'm not mistaken. So, Cesium Astro. Cesium Astro.
Mark Fielding (12:45)
In at number
four, Cesium Astro I'd never heard of them.
Jeremy Gilbertson (12:49)
Me neither.
Mark Fielding (12:50)
What do they do? What do they make?
Jeremy Gilbertson (12:51)
So according to the research that makes software defined communication systems, all right, so what does that mean? This is essentially comms for space, super simply put, but how satellites and aircraft send and receive secure messages, right? Because if you're putting stuff up in space, I'm putting stuff up in space, you're putting stuff up in space, you don't necessarily need to hear what I'm saying for my stuff, I don't need to hear what you're saying for your stuff, so maybe this is
This is bit of say, it's like a, are we in WhatsApp world for secure communications upstairs above us?
Who would use this stuff? You know, military defense agencies needing high throughput, high throughput, jam resistant satellite comms, right? So secure comms.
Mark Fielding (13:36)
Well, they've got
a few contracts, haven't they? In the works, one with the Taiwanese space agency provide software-defined radio payloads. And in the aviation market, Airbus is a demonstration partner. So, Cesium announced planned flight tests of his in-flight connectivity arrays on Airbus commercial aircraft and helicopters in 2023 and 2024. But there's no confirmed operational commercial contract with Airbus as
Jeremy Gilbertson (13:53)
Yep.
$470 million. $470 million folks.
Mark Fielding (14:10)
$470 million raised.
Jeremy Gilbertson (14:14)
The stakes are climbing, Mark. The stakes are climbing. We're creeping into the top three
talking about infrastructure with the previous ones we've gone through, largely infrastructure, communication, coordination, These three at the top have a larger goal, a bigger goal, and it involves folks like you and I hanging out above the earth.
above orbit doing things up there that we normally do down here. these are companies that we've been following. I've been kind of tracking these folks and would love to have them obviously on the show. Number three. Number three.
Mark Fielding (14:50)
Number
three. This is pretty audacious, number three.
Jeremy Gilbertson (14:55)
an appropriate name, VAST SPACE VAST SPACE. Half a billion dollars, my guy. Half a billion dollars, Series A. they have, allegedly have a space station launching in Q1 2027. That's a blink around the corner, dude. That's a blink around the corner. And guess what? Astronauts are already booked and assigned for the summertime. Wow.
Mark Fielding (14:58)
fast.
Jeremy Gilbertson (15:24)
summertime of 2027.
Mark Fielding (15:26)
if you say space station, your mind instantly goes to something, well, at least the ISS, but perhaps bigger than that. Their first isn't of that size, Haven 1 is a single module about the size of a truck.
First step, step by step, obviously they're multi-module station designed to replace the ISS when it retires in 2030. So they're starting with a small, single module.
Jeremy Gilbertson (15:50)
Yep. Single module. then the longer term goal moves into Haven 2, you know, designed to replace the ISS in 2030 when it goes to the beach to drink margaritas and do some fishing because it's been a great career for the ISS.
Mark Fielding (15:51)
progressing to larger.
Vast have got a confirmed
customer, Jeremy.
Jeremy Gilbertson (16:11)
Who is that?
Mark Fielding (16:12)
Who is that? Who is their confirmed customer? NASA selected Vast for the sixth private astronaut mission to the ISS, targeted for launch no earlier than summer 2027, with a crew of four spending up to 14 days aboard the station.
Jeremy Gilbertson (16:33)
And they're already talking about having some payload customers too, you up and trying to make that stuff work. And this is moving towards something that I want to learn more about. drug discovery thing in microgravity. Microgravity makes it easier to do some of those things. We've been tracking that a little bit on Thinking on Paper, but that's one of the things, even back in the day. So space stations aren't super new. mean,
Mark Fielding (16:34)
I even won or.
Jeremy Gilbertson (16:58)
We did a lot of research after the book, after the Space to Grow book, talked about Bigelow who did, Bigelow Space did this like way back in the day, betting on this microgravity condition that everyone would jump up there and start doing research. No one really did. I think it was a launch cost thing maybe a little bit back in the day, but maybe also how do you get the stuff back to earth and all of that. So anyway, Haven 1.
Mark Fielding (17:25)
On that microgravity, one thing as you speak, I was thinking about a drug research lab and how many scientists, how many people would be working in those labs at any one time on in mammoth breakthroughs. And I know that sometimes these incredible breakthroughs often
Jeremy Gilbertson (17:25)
next year about this time.
Mark Fielding (17:47)
come by accident by single people, but in a team, there'll be lots of people. And how easy is it to get all those people up into space? Hey team, good news and bad news. Good news, we're gonna go work on some incredible Alzheimer's drugs. Bad news, we're doing it up there. So we're all going to the space station. you need, how do you, it's not so easy to get the people up there as well as to get the...
the equipment up and down.
Jeremy Gilbertson (18:16)
Well, I mean, think about what you did prior to that with that. talked to Philip Metzger about this, the parabolic flights that create those super small instances of microgravity. And you put a ton of time, energy, money behind whatever experiment you're doing that last. How long does that situation last? four seconds? or whatever the heck, right? extending the opportunity to develop and use that condition.
Mark Fielding (18:34)
20 seconds.
Jeremy Gilbertson (18:42)
it's a little bit more difficult to get.
Mark Fielding (18:42)
It's
definitely a way that you can make money in space, perhaps. And all of these companies, all of these ideas, it's very early days and they're getting a lot of investment and big valuations, but at some point they have to bring money in. it's definitely pharmaceuticals is a way to do that. We're heading to the top. We're heading to the top. We are closing in on number one, but before number one is number...
to second biggest space industry raise of 2026 flying in from Sierra is Sierra space.
Jeremy Gilbertson (19:23)
On their,
flying in from the Sierra on their Dream Chaser is Sierra Space. So Dream Chaser is this reusable space plane that they're developing that will land on a runway like an aircraft. It's interesting, that's kind what the show.
Mark Fielding (19:29)
Dream chase.
Is it
a bit of a replacement for the shuttle?
Jeremy Gilbertson (19:43)
That's yeah, I mean, probably probably with with a little bit.
higher capability potentially. So let me read some of this. So Dream Chaser, when it flies, will be a demonstration flight first. The first mission has been re-baselined.
So it's basically been changed from an ISS resupply run to a demo run. And that's for late this year. I'm not sure where they're sitting with that, but they've had some relatively well-known visitors as of late to their facility, which gives you the idea that more defense money is coming in to these organizations. Would you agree?
Mark Fielding (20:20)
was it the Secretary of War, Pete Hagseth? Did he pay a visit?
Jeremy Gilbertson (20:25)
We talked about
that, that he did. So $550 million, Series C as of March 5th. So not too long ago, not too long confirmed contracts include a $450 million contract to build more than four satellites for a classified national security customer, according to a press release in Sat News.
Mark Fielding (20:36)
Yeah.
Jeremy Gilbertson (20:50)
that kind of balances the cards a little bit, right? $550 coming in, one contract at $450. Not quite diverse, but the money's there.
Mark Fielding (20:59)
There's another one, the Space Development Agency awarded Sierra Space a contract with a total potential value of $740 million for 18 missile warning tracking and fire control satellites as part of Tranche 2 tracking layer constellation.
The Sierra space states it holds contract with all eight space procurement agencies across the US Department of Defense and Intelligence community. Although that's according to them to their own press release, which all adds up to evaluation. So this is the third of the top 10 with an actual confirmed valuation. Eight billion of your US dollars. The Sierra space.
Jeremy Gilbertson (21:41)
That's a bunch. That's a bunch. Sierra,
one to watch. One to watch those that aren't in space tech.
Mark Fielding (21:47)
if you pay any attention to what we do and what we've been doing at Thinking on Paper over the last few months as regards to the people we're speaking to and the books we're reading. That number one and number two on this list, number two
You could call it a space company, but it could be a US national security company as well. Which leads us to number one the charts the biggest space raise of 2026.
And we're throwing a curveball into the charts, aren't we Jeremy?
Jeremy Gilbertson (22:17)
Guess what? It's not in the States. It's not in Europe. But where is this company located, Mark?
Mark Fielding (22:23)
China.
Jeremy Gilbertson (22:24)
The least compelling space name of all the fundraisers, iSpace. iSpace.
Mark Fielding (22:24)
ISpace China.
Do you think
I space. not to be confused with I space Inc. which is a Japanese lunar exploration company
Their full name is the Beijing Interstellar Glory Space Technology Limited. ISpace for short
Jeremy Gilbertson (22:50)
⁓
$729 million, 18 investors, six provincial government funds. And guess what? How are the rockets doing? They're medium range rockets, medium lift rockets, similar to SpaceX's Falcon 9. How's their testing going? How are they doing with their rockets, Mark?
Mark Fielding (23:13)
they're doing about as well as any fresh off the press rocket companies rockets do traditionally.
Jeremy Gilbertson (23:21)
So 50%, 50%, below 50 % failure rate. But hey, I remember we talked through the SpaceX rise to glory and there are quite a bit of failures and things to overcome, but the pace at which they reinvented and reconfigured things so it worked was quite impressive. Read it in Space to Grow, it's a great recollection of that story. the primary market, I guess, for these guys,
is all of China's mega constellation projects. There's a few there that are kind of their state backed answer to Starlink.
Mark Fielding (23:50)
Yep.
Jeremy Gilbertson (23:56)
planning more than ever, you know, both of them together.
Mark Fielding (23:56)
Guo
Wang and Quan Fan. Sorry for the pun intended.
Jeremy Gilbertson (24:01)
Yeah,
23,000. 23,000 again. Stay tuned for the Thinking on Paper Kessler Syndrome dashboard. ⁓ 23,000 more objects put up to Leo. Let's see what happens, right?
Mark Fielding (24:13)
Launch costs in China are currently around $21,000 per kilo versus SpaceX's obviously two and a half grand ish according to the Mercator Institute for China Studies.
iSpace aim to conduct 25 HyperBola3 launches per year by 2030. HyperBola3 is the name for their rocket. Another catchy name.
Jeremy Gilbertson (24:39)
That's a big discrepancy in the launch cost, think. But they see the potential of the physics, I think. Someone has figured out how to get the launch cost to 27 to 3,000, they're at 21,000.
Mark Fielding (24:51)
I don't think that number really means anything does it for coming out of China? We don't really know. We don't know the CEO and the founder of this company. There's not a lot in the public domain about them. How can they have a per kilo price when they're not really launching? give it a few years. as we've learned about China, yes, they'll catch up, won't they? If you can compare the electric car market.
They're behind but they play catch-up pretty well.
Jeremy Gilbertson (25:21)
Yeah, they handled the electric stack okay, didn't they?
Mark Fielding (25:24)
make about what you will.
Jeremy Gilbertson (25:24)
All right, so we've been through the top
10 space tech raises of 2026 as of April 3rd, 2026. Mark, what do you glean out of what we went through and its effects on the perception of the market, the future of space tech and humanity's involvement with it?
Mark Fielding (25:47)
It's exciting times. There is money to be earned, is money to be made, there is progress to be taken.
Artemis has re-ignited the public perception of what is possible. It won't last forever. fanfare will wear off pretty quickly once they get back. time is of the essence.
They're not all gonna make it. This top 10 will not be the top 10 in five years, one year, 10 year.
I'm most excited about Axiom and Vast myself. just love the stag hunts. I love the stag hunts, Jeremy. I want to see those big space stations. I want to see those monumental steps that push us out into civilization. So I'm excited about Vast. I'm excited about Axiom.
It's interesting to see No. 1 being a Chinese rocket company. I think that makes sense with everything we learnt in Space to Grow. I think that makes sense with what we learnt from Seraphine Investments. I think that makes sense with what we learnt from Philip Metzger. It fits in. The Chinese are in the race and they're throwing some money at it.
Jeremy Gilbertson (26:55)
this isn't, reminder, this isn't the top space companies, it's the top raises this year for space technology companies.
Mark Fielding (27:01)
What do
you think about it, Jeremy? before we go through the top 10, just to remind our audience of what it was?
Jeremy Gilbertson (27:06)
the three things that stand out for me, everyone we've talked to about space tech talks about the space to earth infrastructure play, which is what we're seeing. There's a large amount of companies in here still raising money on behalf of that. And that endeavor to still try to figure out the what and the why. Like we can get data from space and get it back to earth. But the usage of that as a space to grow team of authors says the next challenge is trying to figure out how to make that.
a usable, wantable product to the masses. The second piece one country's capability to do something on their own. We're seeing that with the company in Spain. We're seeing that with China, trying to build this internal capability there. And then lastly, with the top three or two of the top three, really putting the humans into space and being able to do human things for long periods of time.
in space, taking advantage of those existing conditions and in physical environments. So pretty interesting, pretty interesting.
Mark Fielding (28:09)
got through that without mentioning the SpaceX trillion dollar multi-trillion dollar IPO, which I'm happy that we did. We'll talk about them another time.
Jeremy Gilbertson (28:09)
right.
What you just did. So we didn't. So there you have it. There it is. Space Tech, top 10 companies, top 10 raises in Space Tech so far in 2026. Revisit. It's only April. There's more to come. We might have to revisit prior to the end of the year, see how these guys are doing and see if any new players popped up. Thinking on paper.xyz. We're into Space Tech. We're into AI. We're into quantum computing and all of its effects on humanity.
Mark Fielding (28:29)
And it's only the April.
Jeremy Gilbertson (28:46)
in the future for us all. Stay curious, be disruptive.
Mark Fielding (28:51)
Keep thinking on paper.
in the top funding for the space industry 2026 number 10 Starcloud. $170 million. on today's show we're going to do a countdown of the other nine players in this field. i feel a little bit like Seraphim investments jeremy.
Jeremy Gilbertson (00:19)
I feel a little bit like Casey Kasem, top 40. So this is exciting. This is exciting. We've got 10 companies we're going to run down. You've already hit the first one, Star what a raise for those guys. Got a lot planned for the year. Hopefully we can have them back on the show. But man, $1.1 billion valuation that's pretty impressive.
Mark Fielding (00:40)
a sign of the optimism and the belief that perhaps all data centers will be in space. So Jeremy I will roll over to you. in the charts. who's in at number nine? Yeah that's why I gave it to you. So XONA, XONA?
Jeremy Gilbertson (00:53)
How do I pronounce this? Yeah, it's unfair, dude. Yeah,
Xona Space, I'm gonna go with XONA. XONASPACE.COM if you wanna hear more about these guys. But again, this is about infrastructure. Infrastructure is always the bigger piece to the puzzle that
industries can scale on and we're talking about space infrastructure here. We're talking about the ability to consider a potential alternative to how we get around and how we coordinate. Coordination is a big human thing we talk about. why are these guys looking at something different than GPS?
Mark Fielding (01:34)
Global Navigation Satellite System, the GNNS, is the umbrella term for all satellite navigation systems of which GPS is one.
And XONA, are launching satellites, a constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit that deliver stronger, more precise, and I like this, encrypted positioning signals than existing GPS systems.
Jeremy Gilbertson (01:57)
potentially giving us a little more autonomy on who we give our location to potentially. So looking at this right now, the basis not the basis of their success, but a real chunk of their momentum has come from the US Space Force that I don't know, I guess they put in about 20 million in government funding tied in with 30 million private capital, right? What was their raise?
Mark Fielding (02:03)
Perhaps.
Jeremy Gilbertson (02:20)
Was that their full raise? Or what are the numbers look like for these guys?
Mark Fielding (02:23)
They got $170 million. So we put Star Cloud in 10th. They could have been in joint ninth, however you wanna play this game, but $170 million. That's a Series C, so they're a bit further down the road than Star Cloud. But in terms of actual products, the company plans to launch six additional satellites on a SpaceX rideshare later this year.
full constellation of 258 satellites planned over the next few years. again, we're talking about potential.
Jeremy Gilbertson (02:54)
Listeners stay in touch with thinking on paper to at our Kessler syndrome dashboard as we run up against the bottlenecks predicted by a pretty brilliant man. Yeah, these guys sound pretty interesting. They got some backing, potential defense contracts. A lot of things happen on the heels of a defense contract, the internet, which we are broadcasting and recording.
to and from right now is brought to you by a DARPA experiment way back in the day. Okay, so the next one,
Mark Fielding (03:26)
In at number 8. Already made the cover of Time Magazine and playing some games with Formula 1 Racing Jeremy. who is in at number 8 on the top Space Industry Funding Countdown?
Jeremy Gilbertson (03:37)
Number eight.
Number eight on the top 10 space funding countdown is TOMORROW IO, coming in at number eight. guys not just partnered. This isn't like a sponsorship with with Formula One. Apparently Formula One is using their infrastructure to understand real time weather as it would affect racing safety of the racers, the cars, the crews, all of that stuff. That's a pretty big
Mark Fielding (03:51)
No.
Jeremy Gilbertson (04:04)
That's a pretty big signal to a pretty powerful piece of infrastructure.
Mark Fielding (04:09)
Yep, the FIA, that's Formula One and all regulated motorsport, the governing body, is a commercial space weather platform into its operations using TOMORROW for real-time race decisions in 2026.
is being used.
Jeremy Gilbertson (04:27)
JetBlue is using it in airports. They were, in 2024 Time's top 100, the time 100 most influential companies of 2024. What are the numbers look like here?
Mark Fielding (04:38)
Uber, Fox
Sports, Ford, Denny's, whatever that is that sounds like an American pizza joint or something.
Jeremy Gilbertson (04:44)
Denny's,
no, Denny's is a breakfast joint, man. It's a breakfast joint, yeah.
Mark Fielding (04:48)
So
nip into 8th place with a $175 million raise, financing led by Stonecourt Capital Deep Sky.
Jeremy Gilbertson (05:02)
Yeah, this and this pushes the valuation of the third company on the list and we're only at number eight to another billion dollar valuation with a B for Space Tech. Guys, if you're listening, you're listening, you're thinking about all Space Tech, we're way far away. This is science fiction. This is this and that. There's going to be major inflection points in Space Tech in investment. We'll have to get our buddy at Seraphim back on and see what he thinks of all these.
Mark Fielding (05:29)
And just to be clear on that, so they are, it's okay, a confirmed unicorn valuation, one billion. of this top 10, only three of the companies, TOMORROW, Star Cloud, and we can't tell you the one until we get there, has a confirmed valuation, so we're not using the valuation, we're using the raise amount to build this top 10. Which makes number one very, very, very interesting, so stick with us for number one, because it's
Jeremy Gilbertson (05:51)
Alright
Mark Fielding (05:56)
Send some ripples through the atmosphere. Yes!
Jeremy Gilbertson (05:59)
So as we bounce around the globe, Mark, since you're more
on this side of the world, why don't you tell us about who's in at number seven?
Mark Fielding (06:07)
Yeah, surprising. We're heading to Spain. CEO and founder Raul Torres and PLD Space. PLD is a launch service provider. focusing on the European market. Its first commercial contract is with Satelloid, a Spanish 5G satellite company, and that's going to launch two direct-to-device satellites in 2027. Interesting.
Mitsubishi Electric invested $50 million as part of the total $210 million for PLD. and they invested so they get priority access to launch slots for its planned satellite constellation serving Japan and the Asian markets. Go Europe!
Jeremy Gilbertson (06:51)
So this is an interesting, yeah, this is an interesting positioning.
Go Europe, this is an interesting positioning, right? So this is more like the Uber black car service than jumping in with 90 other people on a Falcon rocket, right? This is more targeted to people who want a dedicated launch. Who wouldn't want to share space at this point? Who wouldn't want to share space? That's really interesting.
Mark Fielding (07:13)
okay, that makes sense.
Yeah, it is. And I like the European angle and I like that it's not just America in this top 10. So, go Spain.
Jeremy Gilbertson (07:28)
What is the funding? Funding looks like what $210 million or 180 million pounds?
Mark Fielding (07:32)
210 million there,
it's, euros, it's a Series C, so again, they're a bit later on but $50 million of that is coming from Mitsubishi Electric, again, for those priority. It is a big jump.
Jeremy Gilbertson (07:36)
you're us.
It's a big junk and big jump, big junk.
It's a big jump and also like you said Mitsubishi is essentially acquiring the ability to have some dedicated slots for the stuff that they want to throw up in Leo and all the fun stuff. Okay, number seven. There you have it.
Mark Fielding (07:59)
And in at number 6, Stokespace.
Jeremy Gilbertson (08:03)
Dude, a skater stoner name. Stoke. Stokespace. What up, man? How do you feel about that?
Mark Fielding (08:11)
I
like it there, co-founder Andy Lapser has raised a gargantuan $350 million. and what's interesting about Stokespace is that's an extension on previous funding. so they've now raised $1.34 billion. That's not valuation, that's how much they've raised. So they're doing something
Pretty big, Jeremy, you would think, for that amount of funding. What is Stokes Base doing?
Jeremy Gilbertson (08:44)
Well, there, check this out.
According to my research here, there are five companies approved to launch national security satellites. have SpaceX, have ULA, you have Blue Origin, you have Rocket Lab, and guess who? Stoke Space.
Mark Fielding (09:01)
the US Space Force selected Stoke for its national security space launch Phase 3 Lane 1 making it eligible to compete for up to $5.6 billion in national security launch contracts. placing it alongside SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab
only one of five approved providers. However, per the Congressional Research Service, Stoke and Rocket Lab must complete at least one successful launch before they can receive actual mission assignments. So they are approved to compete but not yet approved to fly government payloads.
Jeremy Gilbertson (09:33)
Okay, so you.
Yeah, right. And this is fully reusable is what they're what they're running towards in their first attempt this year, I guess. Have you heard any dates on when they're when they're going to launch?
Mark Fielding (09:47)
No,
they want to carry 3000 kilos to Leo. First orbital attempt is 2026. so at the time of recording I don't believe that they have
Jeremy Gilbertson (09:56)
Betting on something that hasn't gotten off the ground yet. That's a lot of money. But guess it takes a lot of money to pull this kind of stuff off, man.
Mark Fielding (10:02)
say the words national security in 2026 and the money comes flooding in. They've been selected by the US Space Force. They've been mentioned in the same sentences as SpaceX and Blue Origin and Rocket Labs. let's wait and see, watch this space. Talking of space, we're moving up the charts. We're going into the top half and at number five.
We have Axiom Space, Axiom is special in this in that they've sent astronauts to the ISS four times. They hold NASA's only active moonwalking suit contract.
Jeremy Gilbertson (10:40)
This is Land and Expand, man. It's Land and Expand. That's right. That's right. private mission.
Mark Fielding (10:41)
and land and expand.
How much does
it cost? like this. How much did it cost? So Axiom has completed four missions to the ISS, AX1 through AX4 between 2022 and 2025, selling seats at approximately...
Jeremy Gilbertson (10:58)
$55 million. Just yeah, just chump change for you, Mr. Fielding.
Mark Fielding (11:05)
Did you watch the Artemis launch? I can't think of anything more terrifying than sitting on that rocket.
Jeremy Gilbertson (11:11)
After paying $55 million for it. So these guys are pushing. OK, so space suits, I get it. There's a market for those, although relatively limited. they're they're selling or doing those things. But they're also building freaking space So we talked in. We talked in space to grow about like space stations have to be a piece of the infrastructure for want to do half the things we want to do in space.
Mark Fielding (11:14)
I mean, I like to look at it, it's beautiful.
Yeah, that's what got my eye, yeah.
Jeremy Gilbertson (11:38)
The ISS is getting ready to be retired, I believe.
Mark Fielding (11:41)
Yeah, there surely will be a private sector built replacement for that and Axiom will be in of a queue.
Jeremy Gilbertson (11:50)
Did we talk through the numbers on this one? $350 million in a mix of equity and debt. A lot of money rolling into this space, into space space. All based on the Mark Fielding's quote, space, we're going.
Mark Fielding (11:55)
Yep, so 350 million.
There is a lot of excitement and it's not just for us space nuts. It's all over, at least in the UK, it's all over the media. Everybody is aware of what NASA are doing and where there are eyes, there is money.
Jeremy Gilbertson (12:26)
That is correct. Man, we're nearly cracking the top three. Nearly cracking the top three. We're on to number four. Number four, this is a company you probably haven't heard of. I know Space Force has. A couple of other people have. And this is more infrastructure again, I think, if I'm not mistaken. So, Cesium Astro. Cesium Astro.
Mark Fielding (12:45)
In at number
four, Cesium Astro I'd never heard of them.
Jeremy Gilbertson (12:49)
Me neither.
Mark Fielding (12:50)
What do they do? What do they make?
Jeremy Gilbertson (12:51)
So according to the research that makes software defined communication systems, all right, so what does that mean? This is essentially comms for space, super simply put, but how satellites and aircraft send and receive secure messages, right? Because if you're putting stuff up in space, I'm putting stuff up in space, you're putting stuff up in space, you don't necessarily need to hear what I'm saying for my stuff, I don't need to hear what you're saying for your stuff, so maybe this is
This is bit of say, it's like a, are we in WhatsApp world for secure communications upstairs above us?
Who would use this stuff? You know, military defense agencies needing high throughput, high throughput, jam resistant satellite comms, right? So secure comms.
Mark Fielding (13:36)
Well, they've got
a few contracts, haven't they? In the works, one with the Taiwanese space agency provide software-defined radio payloads. And in the aviation market, Airbus is a demonstration partner. So, Cesium announced planned flight tests of his in-flight connectivity arrays on Airbus commercial aircraft and helicopters in 2023 and 2024. But there's no confirmed operational commercial contract with Airbus as
Jeremy Gilbertson (13:53)
Yep.
$470 million. $470 million folks.
Mark Fielding (14:10)
$470 million raised.
Jeremy Gilbertson (14:14)
The stakes are climbing, Mark. The stakes are climbing. We're creeping into the top three
talking about infrastructure with the previous ones we've gone through, largely infrastructure, communication, coordination, These three at the top have a larger goal, a bigger goal, and it involves folks like you and I hanging out above the earth.
above orbit doing things up there that we normally do down here. these are companies that we've been following. I've been kind of tracking these folks and would love to have them obviously on the show. Number three. Number three.
Mark Fielding (14:50)
Number
three. This is pretty audacious, number three.
Jeremy Gilbertson (14:55)
an appropriate name, VAST SPACE VAST SPACE. Half a billion dollars, my guy. Half a billion dollars, Series A. they have, allegedly have a space station launching in Q1 2027. That's a blink around the corner, dude. That's a blink around the corner. And guess what? Astronauts are already booked and assigned for the summertime. Wow.
Mark Fielding (14:58)
fast.
Jeremy Gilbertson (15:24)
summertime of 2027.
Mark Fielding (15:26)
if you say space station, your mind instantly goes to something, well, at least the ISS, but perhaps bigger than that. Their first isn't of that size, Haven 1 is a single module about the size of a truck.
First step, step by step, obviously they're multi-module station designed to replace the ISS when it retires in 2030. So they're starting with a small, single module.
Jeremy Gilbertson (15:50)
Yep. Single module. then the longer term goal moves into Haven 2, you know, designed to replace the ISS in 2030 when it goes to the beach to drink margaritas and do some fishing because it's been a great career for the ISS.
Mark Fielding (15:51)
progressing to larger.
Vast have got a confirmed
customer, Jeremy.
Jeremy Gilbertson (16:11)
Who is that?
Mark Fielding (16:12)
Who is that? Who is their confirmed customer? NASA selected Vast for the sixth private astronaut mission to the ISS, targeted for launch no earlier than summer 2027, with a crew of four spending up to 14 days aboard the station.
Jeremy Gilbertson (16:33)
And they're already talking about having some payload customers too, you up and trying to make that stuff work. And this is moving towards something that I want to learn more about. drug discovery thing in microgravity. Microgravity makes it easier to do some of those things. We've been tracking that a little bit on Thinking on Paper, but that's one of the things, even back in the day. So space stations aren't super new. mean,
Mark Fielding (16:34)
I even won or.
Jeremy Gilbertson (16:58)
We did a lot of research after the book, after the Space to Grow book, talked about Bigelow who did, Bigelow Space did this like way back in the day, betting on this microgravity condition that everyone would jump up there and start doing research. No one really did. I think it was a launch cost thing maybe a little bit back in the day, but maybe also how do you get the stuff back to earth and all of that. So anyway, Haven 1.
Mark Fielding (17:25)
On that microgravity, one thing as you speak, I was thinking about a drug research lab and how many scientists, how many people would be working in those labs at any one time on in mammoth breakthroughs. And I know that sometimes these incredible breakthroughs often
Jeremy Gilbertson (17:25)
next year about this time.
Mark Fielding (17:47)
come by accident by single people, but in a team, there'll be lots of people. And how easy is it to get all those people up into space? Hey team, good news and bad news. Good news, we're gonna go work on some incredible Alzheimer's drugs. Bad news, we're doing it up there. So we're all going to the space station. you need, how do you, it's not so easy to get the people up there as well as to get the...
the equipment up and down.
Jeremy Gilbertson (18:16)
Well, I mean, think about what you did prior to that with that. talked to Philip Metzger about this, the parabolic flights that create those super small instances of microgravity. And you put a ton of time, energy, money behind whatever experiment you're doing that last. How long does that situation last? four seconds? or whatever the heck, right? extending the opportunity to develop and use that condition.
Mark Fielding (18:34)
20 seconds.
Jeremy Gilbertson (18:42)
it's a little bit more difficult to get.
Mark Fielding (18:42)
It's
definitely a way that you can make money in space, perhaps. And all of these companies, all of these ideas, it's very early days and they're getting a lot of investment and big valuations, but at some point they have to bring money in. it's definitely pharmaceuticals is a way to do that. We're heading to the top. We're heading to the top. We are closing in on number one, but before number one is number...
to second biggest space industry raise of 2026 flying in from Sierra is Sierra space.
Jeremy Gilbertson (19:23)
On their,
flying in from the Sierra on their Dream Chaser is Sierra Space. So Dream Chaser is this reusable space plane that they're developing that will land on a runway like an aircraft. It's interesting, that's kind what the show.
Mark Fielding (19:29)
Dream chase.
Is it
a bit of a replacement for the shuttle?
Jeremy Gilbertson (19:43)
That's yeah, I mean, probably probably with with a little bit.
higher capability potentially. So let me read some of this. So Dream Chaser, when it flies, will be a demonstration flight first. The first mission has been re-baselined.
So it's basically been changed from an ISS resupply run to a demo run. And that's for late this year. I'm not sure where they're sitting with that, but they've had some relatively well-known visitors as of late to their facility, which gives you the idea that more defense money is coming in to these organizations. Would you agree?
Mark Fielding (20:20)
was it the Secretary of War, Pete Hagseth? Did he pay a visit?
Jeremy Gilbertson (20:25)
We talked about
that, that he did. So $550 million, Series C as of March 5th. So not too long ago, not too long confirmed contracts include a $450 million contract to build more than four satellites for a classified national security customer, according to a press release in Sat News.
Mark Fielding (20:36)
Yeah.
Jeremy Gilbertson (20:50)
that kind of balances the cards a little bit, right? $550 coming in, one contract at $450. Not quite diverse, but the money's there.
Mark Fielding (20:59)
There's another one, the Space Development Agency awarded Sierra Space a contract with a total potential value of $740 million for 18 missile warning tracking and fire control satellites as part of Tranche 2 tracking layer constellation.
The Sierra space states it holds contract with all eight space procurement agencies across the US Department of Defense and Intelligence community. Although that's according to them to their own press release, which all adds up to evaluation. So this is the third of the top 10 with an actual confirmed valuation. Eight billion of your US dollars. The Sierra space.
Jeremy Gilbertson (21:41)
That's a bunch. That's a bunch. Sierra,
one to watch. One to watch those that aren't in space tech.
Mark Fielding (21:47)
if you pay any attention to what we do and what we've been doing at Thinking on Paper over the last few months as regards to the people we're speaking to and the books we're reading. That number one and number two on this list, number two
You could call it a space company, but it could be a US national security company as well. Which leads us to number one the charts the biggest space raise of 2026.
And we're throwing a curveball into the charts, aren't we Jeremy?
Jeremy Gilbertson (22:17)
Guess what? It's not in the States. It's not in Europe. But where is this company located, Mark?
Mark Fielding (22:23)
China.
Jeremy Gilbertson (22:24)
The least compelling space name of all the fundraisers, iSpace. iSpace.
Mark Fielding (22:24)
ISpace China.
Do you think
I space. not to be confused with I space Inc. which is a Japanese lunar exploration company
Their full name is the Beijing Interstellar Glory Space Technology Limited. ISpace for short
Jeremy Gilbertson (22:50)
⁓
$729 million, 18 investors, six provincial government funds. And guess what? How are the rockets doing? They're medium range rockets, medium lift rockets, similar to SpaceX's Falcon 9. How's their testing going? How are they doing with their rockets, Mark?
Mark Fielding (23:13)
they're doing about as well as any fresh off the press rocket companies rockets do traditionally.
Jeremy Gilbertson (23:21)
So 50%, 50%, below 50 % failure rate. But hey, I remember we talked through the SpaceX rise to glory and there are quite a bit of failures and things to overcome, but the pace at which they reinvented and reconfigured things so it worked was quite impressive. Read it in Space to Grow, it's a great recollection of that story. the primary market, I guess, for these guys,
is all of China's mega constellation projects. There's a few there that are kind of their state backed answer to Starlink.
Mark Fielding (23:50)
Yep.
Jeremy Gilbertson (23:56)
planning more than ever, you know, both of them together.
Mark Fielding (23:56)
Guo
Wang and Quan Fan. Sorry for the pun intended.
Jeremy Gilbertson (24:01)
Yeah,
23,000. 23,000 again. Stay tuned for the Thinking on Paper Kessler Syndrome dashboard. ⁓ 23,000 more objects put up to Leo. Let's see what happens, right?
Mark Fielding (24:13)
Launch costs in China are currently around $21,000 per kilo versus SpaceX's obviously two and a half grand ish according to the Mercator Institute for China Studies.
iSpace aim to conduct 25 HyperBola3 launches per year by 2030. HyperBola3 is the name for their rocket. Another catchy name.
Jeremy Gilbertson (24:39)
That's a big discrepancy in the launch cost, think. But they see the potential of the physics, I think. Someone has figured out how to get the launch cost to 27 to 3,000, they're at 21,000.
Mark Fielding (24:51)
I don't think that number really means anything does it for coming out of China? We don't really know. We don't know the CEO and the founder of this company. There's not a lot in the public domain about them. How can they have a per kilo price when they're not really launching? give it a few years. as we've learned about China, yes, they'll catch up, won't they? If you can compare the electric car market.
They're behind but they play catch-up pretty well.
Jeremy Gilbertson (25:21)
Yeah, they handled the electric stack okay, didn't they?
Mark Fielding (25:24)
make about what you will.
Jeremy Gilbertson (25:24)
All right, so we've been through the top
10 space tech raises of 2026 as of April 3rd, 2026. Mark, what do you glean out of what we went through and its effects on the perception of the market, the future of space tech and humanity's involvement with it?
Mark Fielding (25:47)
It's exciting times. There is money to be earned, is money to be made, there is progress to be taken.
Artemis has re-ignited the public perception of what is possible. It won't last forever. fanfare will wear off pretty quickly once they get back. time is of the essence.
They're not all gonna make it. This top 10 will not be the top 10 in five years, one year, 10 year.
I'm most excited about Axiom and Vast myself. just love the stag hunts. I love the stag hunts, Jeremy. I want to see those big space stations. I want to see those monumental steps that push us out into civilization. So I'm excited about Vast. I'm excited about Axiom.
It's interesting to see No. 1 being a Chinese rocket company. I think that makes sense with everything we learnt in Space to Grow. I think that makes sense with what we learnt from Seraphine Investments. I think that makes sense with what we learnt from Philip Metzger. It fits in. The Chinese are in the race and they're throwing some money at it.
Jeremy Gilbertson (26:55)
this isn't, reminder, this isn't the top space companies, it's the top raises this year for space technology companies.
Mark Fielding (27:01)
What do
you think about it, Jeremy? before we go through the top 10, just to remind our audience of what it was?
Jeremy Gilbertson (27:06)
the three things that stand out for me, everyone we've talked to about space tech talks about the space to earth infrastructure play, which is what we're seeing. There's a large amount of companies in here still raising money on behalf of that. And that endeavor to still try to figure out the what and the why. Like we can get data from space and get it back to earth. But the usage of that as a space to grow team of authors says the next challenge is trying to figure out how to make that.
a usable, wantable product to the masses. The second piece one country's capability to do something on their own. We're seeing that with the company in Spain. We're seeing that with China, trying to build this internal capability there. And then lastly, with the top three or two of the top three, really putting the humans into space and being able to do human things for long periods of time.
in space, taking advantage of those existing conditions and in physical environments. So pretty interesting, pretty interesting.
Mark Fielding (28:09)
got through that without mentioning the SpaceX trillion dollar multi-trillion dollar IPO, which I'm happy that we did. We'll talk about them another time.
Jeremy Gilbertson (28:09)
right.
What you just did. So we didn't. So there you have it. There it is. Space Tech, top 10 companies, top 10 raises in Space Tech so far in 2026. Revisit. It's only April. There's more to come. We might have to revisit prior to the end of the year, see how these guys are doing and see if any new players popped up. Thinking on paper.xyz. We're into Space Tech. We're into AI. We're into quantum computing and all of its effects on humanity.
Mark Fielding (28:29)
And it's only the April.
Jeremy Gilbertson (28:46)
in the future for us all. Stay curious, be disruptive.
Mark Fielding (28:51)
Keep thinking on paper.
