Filip Kocian 🎗️ have some interesting insights about BlackRock investments in #space, enjoy!
Investor @ Expansion Ventures Space | Finance & Strategy | send a note when connecting
In 2021, BlackRock invested in Astranis, Relativity, Astra, RocketLab, Loft Orbital, Sierra Space, Planet and Ursa Major. While it doesn’t necessarily indicate a major interest of BlackRock in space back then, I think it gives BlackRock a really interesting data access platform. Ultimately, the 8 space bets BlackRock placed in the 2021 investment frenzy were just >7% fraction of their total 122 investments made that year (and more if counting several separate vehicles). So I wouldn’t consider that a high-signal output, space just happened to be a somewhat notable part of the growth/pre-IPO dealflow where part of BlackRock’s mandate lies. That activity level was not necessarily sustainable and some of the partners behind those space investments left for new investment funds. On the investment performance side, as far as I know, they split 50/50 between the ones that appreciated since - and of course the ones that didn’t. Where exactly that leaves BlackRock would depend on the exact deal structure of the investments above - so I don’t want to necessarily imply that BlackRock has done poorly. What I didn’t realize before is that this makes BlackRock certainly in the top space company equity holders (constraining that to startup/new space-ish companies) - I think Softbank, Mubadala and some large SpaceX investors (Google typically) and a few others would compete for the spot, tho BlackRock’s position spreads across more companies than the entities named above. The most interesting potential play for BlackRock here is the data access - thanks to significant stakes, BlackRock now must have an unprecedented pool of proprietary financial and less tangible data insight into privately held companies which are otherwise quite closely guarded. I think this will once again become more interesting as sophisticated investors look to deploy in space (which they absolutely are looking to) - of course investing to maximize returns, but taking into account the value of data platforms for future investments too. I follow SWFs quite closely and this is no different to their playbook in other investment areas - backing top-tier fund managers globally and then subsequently using all the deal and information flows to generate investment opportunities in-house.
