Space on the Moon: VCs are investing in a new class of space startups applying web3

In just a few months, Web3 has taken the internet world by storm. The past few years have seen more people embrace the potential of a decentralized web following the debut of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. As it stands, most of the platforms that exist on the internet are built on Web 2.0; this includes social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook as well as centralized applications offering a range of services.

Now, venture capital firms and investors are beginning to invest in a new market of companies bringing Web3 into space. Recently, Startup Wise Guys, Pointer Capital, and others invested in Copernic Space, a blockchain-based marketplace for space assets and investments by the mass market. This market is the beginning of a new era of democratized economic ownership in space.

The increased interest in the new budding sector applying blockchain technology to open wider commercial access to space and related investments marks the beginning of a new market.

In development since 2020, Copernic Space recently launched its marketplace where space industry players can tokenize their space assets to commercialize what they own and access new monetization methods. The launch features the first-ever sale of tokenized payload space featuring Lunar Outpost’s MAPP Lunar Rover destined for the Moon this year.

In the first commercial lunar mission, you can not only buy the rights to send a physical lunar payload through Copernic Space but fractionalize ownership of that payload and resell it to the retail market. This brings space into the digital economy, democratizing access and creating a true space asset market that provides the opportunity to have ownership in space for the first time. As further space asset sales are released on the marketplace, in 2023 Copernic Space plans to add the SpacePool, a DeFi application that facilitates liquidity directly from the retail market into space projects.

General Partner of Pointer Capital, Lukas S. Zgiep said: “It is fresh, creative, and shows us that we should step out from our comfort zone in the way we look at Crypto and NFTs. There is huge potential that the space economy will be more valuable than the earth’s economy. If this happens Copernic Space will be Amazon for the Space economy!”

Led by Grant Blaisdell, one of the Co-Founders of a leading blockchain analytics company Coinfirm, Copernic Space represents a new market in the collision of space and crypto. This marketplace sets the standard for the commercialization of space and related investments. But the platform is not only looking to scale up the already $500b space economy, but be the home for other space-related crypto companies building a diverse ecosystem like Spacechain, Space DAOs like SKTLS, and NFT based space projects such as Spaceman.

The Managing Director of Startups Wise Guys Growth program and space industry enthusiast, Daniela Esposito, said that “Copernic Space is providing such a unique and disruptive proposition into the market, that missing the opportunity to invest into and to support the first digital marketplace ever for space assets wasn’t an option.”

Investors continuously push more and more investments into the space economy, but this category represents a new class of space-related companies with much lower capital requirements and shorter liquidity event timelines, a big roadblock for many traditional investors. What this new market also represents is breaking down the barriers of entry into the space economy to where the average person can participate and become an owner or investor in space. Space is truly entering into a new final frontier.