Doing Deals in a Pandemic

Doing Deals in a Pandemic

We’ve covered a wide range of topics recently, from an early assessment of COVID-19’s impact on the Satellite & Space sector to OneWeb’s Chapter 11 filing. We also recently published an analysis on how a pandemic-induced recession will impact the Satellite & Space venture-backed landscape (“Venture Space”).  But what about M&A, private equity/venture, and public equity activity?

It turns out, despite the severity of the crisis, Satellite & Space sector activity in Q1 2020 (“1Q20”) was actually above average across both M&A and private equity/venture capital. This good news comes with a crucial asterisk, however, as the pandemic’s impact on the economy (and financial markets) did not become apparent until the middle of March. In our 1Q2020 Quarterly Market Monitor, we counted 17 M&A transactions, 29 private equity/venture rounds, and two public equity financings

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LEO Broadband Special Report Series

Part II: LEO Systems Analysis

 

While our Part I report provided a historical retrospective on failed LEO efforts of the 1990s, our Part II report focuses squarely on the here-and-now, providing a comprehensive overview Amazon, OneWeb, SpaceX, and Telesat.

Our ~80-page report breaks down the opportunities, risks, and leading players across five major spheres.  A narrow sampling of considerations and takeaways includes:

  • Spectrum. OneWeb and Telesat are in the drivers’ seat.  Amazon is still working on a strategy.
  • Space Segment. Space segment price per bit varies widely. And despite the universal appeal of optical inter-satellite links (O-ISLs), Telesat is the only company today to baseline the technology on Gen1 satellites. Do O-ISLs have implications for a key LEO competitive advantage, latency?
  • Launch. SpaceX’s order of magnitude cost advantage and its launch cadence control gives it design freedom (both satellite and
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Is the U.S. National Security Space “Launch Market” only big enough for two launch providers?

In October 2018, the US Air Force selected four companies (Blue Origin, Northrop, SpaceX, ULA) to compete for the newly established National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program that replaces the 1990s vintage EELV program. The Air Force has… Read the rest

Thinking about SpaceX’s Petition to Launch an Additional 30,000 Satellites

On October 15, various news outlets, including SpaceNews, reported that SpaceX submitted filings for up to an … Read the rest

The White Elephant in the hangar

 

Earlier this summer, multiple news outlets reported that Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch was for sale for $400 million. At the time, we wondered… Read the rest

An Ocean’s width between success and muddling

It is sometimes interesting to observe how two companies operating in the same business confront challenges from completely different philosophies. In this case, the two companies in question are SpaceX (a U.S. company)… Read the rest

Virgin Orbit – Approaching Pole Position?

 

Over the past five years, the launch sector has (improbably?) become one of the hottest startup sectors, with more than 100 companies announcing plans to enter the market. To date, however, only one of these new entrants … Read the rest

Paying a premium for obsolescence

Image Credit: ULA
On 30 September, the US Air Force awarded United Launch Alliance (ULA) a $1.18 billion contract modification to support the launch of five Delta IV Heavy rockets stretching through the end of February 2024. When combined with an earlier $1.01 billion production contract, each launch will cost a hefty $438 million. The contract modification was necessary because, with the end of the EELV program,
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SpaceX Starship Webcast

 

On September 28, 2019 (eleven years after the first successful launch of the Falcon 1), Elon Musk hosted a nearly two-hour webcast update on SpaceX’s Starship development plans.  While the broad outlines of the company’s plan were already well known (prior speeches, Musk tweets), the webcast provided some important new details and (fantastical?) claims that, … Read the rest