2015年，風投界向大大小小的商用航天創業公司累計投資超過18億美元，比該行業之前15年間獲得的所有風投資金還要多近一倍。

弗吉尼亞州的航空航天與國防業咨詢機構金牛集團（Tauri Group）最近發布的一份報告表明，航天領域創業公司在2015年跨過了一個重大的拐點——至少在風投機構眼中是這樣。風投機構正在爭先恐后地以前所未有的熱情向這些年輕的創業公司進行投資。

商用航天業之所以能迎來碩果累累的一年，源于注入該行業的一些重大投資——根據這份報告，這些重大投資指的是靠天使投資和風險投資起家的創業公司所獲得的種子資金、風投或私募投資，包括谷歌（Google）和富達（Fidelity）向伊隆·馬斯克的SpaceX投資的10億美元，衛星通訊公司OneWeb的一輪5億美元的融資，以及亞馬遜（Amazon）創始人杰夫·貝索斯為空間發射創業公司Blue Origin進行的重大投資等。

這份研究還指出，2015年，其他50多家風投機構也向航天企業進行了投資，這表明一向被人們認為風險過高、收益太慢的航天行業，已經成了風投界眼中的熱土。

“非航天行業針對航天領域的投資行為的確達到了史無前例的水平。2015年是投資額非常大的一年，尤其是對于這些創業公司來說。” 金牛集團執行董事卡莉莎·克里斯坦森表示。克里斯坦森同時擔任了多家商用航天創業公司的顧問。

從2000年到2015年年末，航天行業的創業公司共獲得了133億美元的投資，包括29億美元的風險投資。其中有18億美元，即三分之二的風投資本是在去年投入的。克里斯坦森認為，風險投資的大量涌入，說明投資者對航天行業的認知發生了轉變。

以往航天行業的創業公司所獲得的投資，主要是由像伊隆·馬斯克這樣對太空旅行感興趣的“倡導型投資者”，以及與軌道技術有戰略利益相關的企業（如電信公司、衛星電視運營商等）提供的。

而現在，隨著SpaceX等一些公司已經取得了顯著的成功，更多投資者也開始將航天領域當成類似傳統的科技領域來看待——也就是說，他們認為航天領域也能像傳統科技領域一樣，可以迅速將產品投入市場，并在相對較短的時間內產生收益。不過，克里斯坦森表示，這些產品和收益一般與航天的關系不大，而是更偏重于信息方面。

“SpaceX打開了這扇門，但是真正為行業帶來投資的是數據。”克里斯坦森指出。很多航天業的創業公司，比如Sprie、Planet Labs、Mapbox、BlackSky Global和Orbital Insight等，都是將自身定位成一個天基數據鏈的角色，他們要么制造和管理著一批小型地球測繪衛星，要么就是在分析這些衛星搜集的數據。這種小型衛星只要數量上部署得足夠多，就能定期實時提供全球的島瞰圖像。同時這些公司提供的數據還可以用來監測全球的經濟活動。

克里斯坦森表示：“之所以會出現這一幕，并不是因為航天，甚至也不是因為測繪技術，而是因為這些衛星能夠產生大量的數據，而這些數據能夠為全球的企業政策和工業活動提供見解——比如在企業供應鏈、石油生產、海運或海事活動等方面。”

投資者們認為，這些數據還有很多價值沒有被開發出來，這些價值，再加上小型衛星零部件成本的下降，導致了投資者對年輕的航天創業公司的態度也發生了轉變。克里斯坦森認為，在將來一段時間，最重要的問題是，哪些公司能夠邁出當前的“待產出”階段，開始產出風投機構真正期盼的東西——投資收益。

她表示：“有些人已經通過高估值賺到了錢，但是目前還沒有人通過銷售產品賺到錢。因此，眼下的確是一段非常令人興奮的時間，因為我們可以觀察到這些公司的表現。究竟誰能賺到錢，什么時候能賺到錢，這將是一個非常有趣的問題。”(財富中文網)

譯者：樸成奎

Venture capital firms invested $1.8 billion in commercial space startups in 2015, nearly doubling the amount of venture cash invested in the industry in all of the previous 15 years combined. A new report released by Virginia-based aerospace and defense consultancy The Tauri Group suggests that space startups turned a major corner in 2015, at least in the eyes of venture capital firms that are now piling money into young space companies with unprecedented gusto.

A handful of significant investments in space startups—defined in the report as angel- and venture-backed companies that have received seed, VC, or private equity investment—drove the industry’s banner year. Those included a $1 billion investment in Elon Musk’s SpaceX from Google GOOG -0.33% and Fidelity, a $500 million funding round by satellite communications company OneWeb, and significant investments by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in space launch startup Blue Origin. But the study also found that more than 50 venture capital firms invested in space companies in 2015, signaling that venture capital has warmed to a space industry it has long considered both too risky and too slow to yield returns.

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“It’s really an unprecedented level of investment activity by non-space actors in space,” says Carissa Christensen, managing partner of The Tauri Group and adviser to several commercial space startups. “The core message is that its been a very large investment year for space, and particularly for these kinds of companies.”

From 2000 through 2015, space startups reeled in $13.3 billion in investment cash, including $2.9 billion in venture capital. A full $1.8 billion—or roughly two-thirds—of that venture capital was invested last year alone. The influx of all that VC cash suggests a shifting perception among investors, Christensen says.

Investment in space-related startups was once largely dominated by “advocacy investors” passionate about space travel (think Elon Musk) and corporations with strategic interests in Earth orbit (telecoms, satellite TV providers, etc.). Now, thanks to a handful of very visible successes from companies like SpaceX, a broader base of investors are looking at space startups as more traditional tech investments—the kind that rapidly bring a product to market and generate revenue in the relatively near term. Those products and revenues generally have less to do with space and more to do with information, Christensen says.

“SpaceX opened the door, but what really brought on the investment is data,” she says. A slew of space industry startups—companies like Spire, Planet Labs, Mapbox, BlackSky Global, and Orbital Insight—have attracted venture funds by positioning themselves along a space-based data supply chain, either by building and managing constellations (or future constellations) of small Earth-imaging satellites or by managing and crunching the data those satellites collect. Deployed in large enough numbers, these constellations can provide a regularly refreshing bird’s-eye views of the entire planet—data sets from which companies can monitor global economic activity.

“The play is not because it’s space,” Christensen says. “The play is not even because it’s imagery. The play is because these satellite systems are going to create large data sets, and those data sets yield insight into corporate policy and industrial activity around the globe—things like corporate supply chains, oil production, or shipping and maritime activity.”

Investors see a lot of untapped value in those data sets, and coupled with the falling cost of small satellite components that value is changing investor attitudes toward young space startups. The question going forward, Christensen says, is which companies can move beyond their current pre-revenue stage and begin providing the kinds of returns on investment venture capital firms expect.

“Some people have made money through high valuations, but no one has yet made money just by making money—by selling product,” she says. “That’s why it’s a really exciting time to see how these companies perform. Now the interesting question is going to be: How does this play out in terms of who delivers and when?”