Investment into space companies accelerated sharply in the first quarter, reaching $7.95 billion as larger late-stage financings and growing anticipation around SpaceX’s move toward public markets drew capital into the sector, according to data from Seraphim Space released on Tuesday.
The quarterly total nearly doubled the $3.93 billion recorded in the prior three months and pushed trailing 12-month investment to a record $18.8 billion. Deal activity also increased, with 159 transactions in the quarter and an annualized total of 654 deals.
Rather than an across-the-board rise in transaction volume, the report found the uptick in deployed capital was driven primarily by bigger cheque sizes. Average deal value climbed to $68 million in the first quarter from $35.1 million in the fourth quarter, underscoring a shift toward larger, later-stage rounds.
Notable transactions anchored the quarter. The largest round cited in the report was a $1.75 billion financing for U.S.-based Saronic, described as one of the largest space financings on record. That concentration of capital into very large deals contributed materially to the overall increase in funding.
“The market today definitely feels ’risk-on’ with capital moving quickly into perceived category leaders,” said Lucas Bishop, an investment associate at Seraphim Space, attributing the momentum to a convergence of forces including defense spending, renewed lunar ambitions and investor anticipation around a SpaceX IPO.
Industry participants point to the potential for a SpaceX public listing to create a landmark liquidity event for early investors and employees and to establish a valuation benchmark that could sharpen exit visibility for venture-backed space firms. The company is also expected to host an analyst day, a step cited in the report as part of the broader investor focus.
Regional patterns remained uneven. North America accounted for roughly 70% of total funding in the quarter, while Europe posted its strongest performance since 2022. Asia contributed more than $1.2 billion to the quarter’s total.
Investment interest is expanding beyond traditional satellite communications. Seraphim’s data show significantly increased capital flowing into emerging segments such as in-space infrastructure, including projects aimed at space stations and data centers, indicating a broadening of the sector’s addressable market.
The report also highlighted continued momentum in satellite connectivity, noting in the context of recent sector activity that Amazon announced plans to acquire Globalstar for $11.6 billion. Seraphim’s findings suggest capital is being reallocated across a wider set of business models within the space ecosystem, rather than concentrated solely in legacy satellite business lines.
While deal count rose, the clear driver for the record quarterly and trailing annual totals was the scale of a relatively small number of very large financings. That pattern leaves the sector’s headline funding figures sensitive to a handful of outsized rounds rather than reflecting uniform growth in financing at all stages.