Venture capital is the money used by small firms to expand. It is key to developing new ideas, and new industries. The economic collapse of the past few months has drastically affected venture capital, along with most other economic actvity, to the point that VC investment levels are at 12-year lows.
NewSpace firms have been shielded from that decline to the extent they are owned by extremely wealthy individuals-- Elon Musk, Sir Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos-- who put their own money at risk. Other NewSpace firms, however, have been forced to delay projects for lack of funds.
There may be a silver lining, though. One area VC firms continue to fund is the life sciences. With a ten year horizon on their investment, they still expect to do extraordinarily well in that area. Life science research and pharmaceutical manufacture in microgravity could easily be a key in the early phase of establishing an economy beyond Earth. With ten years to develop, some space-based efforts might still get a green light.
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