Beyond SpaceX: AI, defence, orbital infrastructure and green utopia | Mark Boggett, Seraphim Space | Ep. 88
Following SpaceX’s June 2026 IPO, Ross Butler asks Mark Boggett, CEO and General Partner of Seraphim Space, what investors should make of the much wider SpaceTech ecosystem.
The conversation explores why defence is underwriting near-term growth, how AI is unlocking satellite data, why falling launch costs could make orbital infrastructure viable, and where investable opportunities may sit beyond launch and connectivity.
Included in this episode:
- Where the investment opportunities sit beyond SpaceX, Starlink and launch
- Why war is accelerating revenues across dual-use SpaceTech companies
- How AI and lower launch costs could unlock data, energy and orbital infrastructure
- How Seraphim invests from accelerator stage through to listed growth capital
The big take
Space is becoming a digital and physical infrastructure layer for the global economy. Defence budgets are accelerating deployment and helping companies move more quickly through their technology roadmaps, but the long-term investment case depends on those capabilities becoming commercially useful at scale.
The key question is not simply whether space creates economic value. It is where that value ultimately accrues: to launch providers, vertically integrated satellite operators, sovereign infrastructure suppliers, data platforms, communications networks or in-orbit service companies.
Mark estimates that SpaceX addresses only around 20% of the broader opportunity, leaving substantial potential in Earth observation, navigation, data processing, orbital servicing, manufacturing, energy and infrastructure.
What sits beyond SpaceX?
The upstream space economy begins with launch, but rapidly expands into several distinct layers.
There are constellations providing Earth observation, communications and navigation. There are businesses monitoring orbital activity and debris. There is an emerging in-space infrastructure market covering communications towers, transport, servicing, manufacturing, data processing and energy generation.
Beyond that sit longer-duration opportunities around lunar activity, resource extraction and human spaceflight.
The downstream market is equally important. It includes ground stations, cybersecurity, the transmission and storage of data, and the software needed to convert satellite observations into commercially useful information.
War is the immediate revenue engine
Asked where current demand is coming from, Boggett’s answer is emphatic: “Defence, defence and defence.”
The ten largest companies in Seraphim’s growth portfolio increased revenues by an average of approximately 80% over the preceding 12 months, with defence demand responsible for that growth. He also describes procurement cycles shortening materially as governments seek to acquire proven capabilities from agile technology companies.
Yet most of Seraphim’s companies were not established as defence contractors. Almost all are dual-use businesses: the same hardware, software and infrastructure can serve both sovereign and commercial customers.
Can Europe close its space capability gap?
Europe is ‘starting from scratch’ in the modern space race.
Germany is enthusiastic, the UK is lacking follow-on funding and falling behind.
Seraphim is a global investor. Mark describes its portfolio as approximately half US-based, with meaningful exposure to the UK and Continental Europe. He expects the US to remain the industry’s principal centre, although Europe’s share could increase as defence capital moves into the market.
When could dual-use revenues become predominantly commercial?
Mark reckons that defence currently represents around 80% of revenues across the sector. He believes that balance could invert within three to five years, although defence itself may continue growing strongly.
Two developments underpin that view.
First, larger constellations are producing richer and more frequent observations of the Earth. As revisit rates improve, data moves closer to real time. That makes it useful to a wider range of customers and increases its potential commercial value.
Second, satellite communications are connecting not only people but machines, sensors, vehicles and other Internet of Things devices. That creates a global communications layer capable of serving industries and locations that terrestrial networks cannot reach efficiently.
Defence spending is effectively helping companies build this infrastructure sooner.
How does AI change the economics of satellite data?
The constraint on commercial adoption has not necessarily been the volume of data collected from space. It has been the difficulty of moving, integrating and interpreting that data.
Historically, using satellite data required specialist teams, expensive systems integration and lengthy implementation projects. Industries such as mining, oil and gas and defence could justify that cost, but many mainstream businesses could not.
AI changes the integration layer.
Companies with AI-enabled data infrastructure can ingest new datasets more quickly, combine them with terrestrial information and incorporate the resulting insights into everyday decision-making.
Why could orbital data centres and energy change the market?
The combination of SpaceX and xAI makes more sense when viewed through the economics of AI infrastructure.
AI systems require growing amounts of compute and energy. SpaceX controls reusable launch, a large-scale satellite-manufacturing operation, an orbital communications network and, following its combination with xAI, an artificial-intelligence platform.
Mark argues that this creates an unusually integrated position from which to develop orbital computing infrastructure.
Energy is potentially the larger opportunity. Mark believes access to abundant solar energy in space could eventually support computing and other industrial processes.
What business models and investment moats are emerging?
Mark believes the strongest companies tend to be vertically integrated. They design and manufacture satellites, develop their own software and AI, operate their constellations and maintain direct relationships with end customers.
That creates a rapid feedback loop. Customer requirements feed directly into software, operations and the next generation of hardware without depending on multiple external suppliers.
Vertical integration is expensive and operationally difficult, but it can increase speed and defensibility. Boggett notes that Seraphim encourages portfolio companies to patent not only hardware designs but manufacturing methods, operational processes, algorithms, failure-recovery procedures and sector-specific uses of their data.
The resulting intellectual-property portfolios can become significant barriers to entry. They also reinforce the power-law nature of venture investment: the leading company attracts customers, capital and talent, making it progressively harder for later entrants to catch up.
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