The Promus Ventures New Space Index
Keep Updated on the New Space Economy Through our Regular Snapshots, Insights, and Analyses.
Promus Ventures made its first space investment with Spire in 2014. We have been privileged over the years to invest in other New Space companies as Rocket Lab, ICEYE, Mapbox, Isotropic Systems, Cape Analytics, and numerous others. Along the way, we have shared our views on opportunities in the New Space sector, satellite services, measuring changes in climate from space, as well as our thoughts on Rocket Lab recently trading on Nasdaq and Spire trading on NYSE.
Our focus on the early-stage investment opportunities in the emerging New Space economy is reflected in the announcement of our $140M Promus Ventures Space Fund, which has already invested in seven companies distributed across the globe.
As we continue to witness incredible growth and developments in the New Space, both in the private and public markets, we are excited to introduce our Promus Ventures New Space Index, which as we continue to build it out we hope will be a meaningful resource to investors and the industry for years to come.
Introducing the Promus Ventures New Space Index: New Space Companies
This new index tracks publicly traded companies that we believe represent the emerging leaders in the space economy. The index is based on our expertise in the New Space ecosystem, and our insights into the way both New Space and Legacy Space companies will contribute to the growth of this sector.
Our index is a market cap weighted index that tracks the performance of New Space companies. We have deliberately chosen not to include any Legacy Space companies or legacy companies with space exposure.
However, we do see value in comparing the performance of New Space companies with the Legacy Space sector over time. As a result, we are also tracking a legacy space index of publicly traded defense contractors, legacy geosynchronous satellite operators, and companies that leverage space-based data extensively, and will report on these legacy space companies. As the number of pure-play New Space companies that are trading publicly increases, we believe that there will be value in comparing the market reception and reaction to New Space versus the Legacy Space sector, and will share our perspective regularly. We have also included a small number of companies in areas like UAV and eVTOL air mobility in our New Space index, given the close overlap with the Space sector
We primarily include companies that trade on US markets, but also some companies that trade on other markets. The Space industry is global, and we wanted our index to reflect this.
SPAC Vehicles
Our index does not include the SPAC vehicles that have announced transactions with New Space companies, but as these transactions close, we will update the index to include the new entity tickers. We expect additional category leaders in the private New Space market to take advantage of this kind of vehicle and list it on the public markets over time.
We feel that our choice of a market-cap weighted index will allow for these New Space-focused SPACs to be an important component of the index, though their influence will likely be lower initially as they start life on the public markets. The current SPAC vehicles that we plan to add to our index are listed below along with their proposed targets and likely de-SPAC dates.
Future Work — Recognizing the Importance of Position, Navigation, and Timing in the Global Economy
We are also interested in public companies that leverage precision position, navigation, and timing information (PNT), as this enabling technology underpins a huge percentage of global GDP. PNT information from publicly funded constellations such as GPS, Galileo, Glonass, and BeiDou, alongside the proliferation of low-cost receivers from semiconductor companies, has been a stepping stone for many successful new companies that have entered the public markets over the last decade.
We haven’t included any public companies in massive sectors of the global economy like mobility, logistics or communications, that take advantage of PNT data as a key part of their business model in our first version of the Promus Ventures New Space Index, but we may choose to do so in the future.
Index Criteria
Our criteria for inclusion in the index is very simple — we include all of the New Space companies that have been listed in the recent past, starting with the listing of Virgin Galactic in 2020. We intend to limit the companies in the index to those that have a market capitalization of $500M USD or greater, but will make exceptions on a case by case basis if necessary.
As mentioned above, there are several SPAC vehicles that have identified a New Space company as their intended merger target, or that have not identified a specific merger target, but they include New Space as one of their search areas. We have not included these SPACs, but will monitor them and add those that do successfully bring New Space companies to the public markets. As additional New Space leaders start trading publicly through other methods such as traditional IPOs or direct listings, we will include these entities as well.
Over time we will use additional criteria, which we will define and publicize as additional Security Eligibility Criteria, to refine the index as the number of companies we consider eligible for inclusion increases. Metrics like historical revenue growth will likely eventually be considered when looking at companies for inclusion, with some discretion allowed if revenue growth is outweighed by qualitative factors.
The Index will be rebalanced quarterly on the second Monday of January, April, July, and October. Moving forward, as we add additional Security Eligibility Criteria these will be applied using market data at the market close on the Friday preceding the rebalancing date of the aforementioned months which serve as the quarterly Index selection dates (unless that Friday is a holiday, in which case the most recent trading day data will be used). The results of the Index selection will be applied to the Index on the Index rebalancing date and shares are fixed on the selection date.
We do not currently consider dividends in the construction of our new space index, but may include these in future revisions to track total return of the New Space sector.
Q3 2021 Index Components
Our initial snapshot of the publicly traded entities that we believe represent the emerging Space economy is presented below.
As mentioned we include all the recent SPAC vehicles that have announced successful transactions with New Space leaders and will adjust the index with the new tickers as the de-SPAC happens for future New Space SPAC transactions.
The Space Economy Newsletter — Regular Insight and Analysis
We plan to publish regular snapshots of data, insight, and analysis based on our Space Index, every second Monday. This will track metrics and highlight capital market trends and developments in the Space economy.
You can subscribe to our Space Economy Newsletter here, to make sure you never miss an update.
This post and the information presented are intended for informational purposes only.
The views expressed herein are the authors’ alone and do not constitute an offer to sell, or a recommendation to purchase, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any security, nor a recommendation for any investment product or service.
While certain information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, neither the authors nor any of their employers or their affiliates have independently verified this information, and its accuracy and completeness cannot be guaranteed. Accordingly, no representation or warranty, express or implied, is made as to, and no reliance should be placed on, the fairness, accuracy, timeliness or completeness of this information.
The authors and all employers and their affiliated persons assume no liability for this information and no obligation to update the information or analysis contained herein in the future.
All financial data presented is aggregated from publicly-available data feeds through the Google Finance API.
General Disclaimer
Recipients of this post are not to construe it as investment, legal, or tax advice, and it is not intended to provide the basis for any evaluation of an investment in any fund. Prospective investors should consult with their own legal, investment, tax, accounting, and other advisors to determine the potential benefits, burdens, and risks associated with making an investment in any fund.
Promus Ventures is a trademark of Promus Holdings, LLC. Used under license.
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