SpaceX's public listing today is a major milestone for the entire space industry and marks the beginning of mainstream space as a serious, investable industry.
This is an important enough milestone for the industry that I feel it's worth commenting on.
Everyone here (most who are just tourist investors pivoting from crypto to the latest trends) is throwing takes out there about whether SpaceX is overvalued or not.
I want to skip all that and focus on something else: "Space as an investable industry going mainstream".
If, before, "space as an industry" was something only VCs and forward-thinking investors threw money at, it's now an investable category with tremendous growth potential over the next decade.
Space is probably THE most exciting investable growth story unfolding in real time over the next decade.
Space investing is still in its infancy, but the early space infrastructure is being built out, and what happens (or does not happen) is vitally important to the future of humanity. It's still possible to get a piece of the pie here.
Regardless of what happens with the SpaceX IPO, this will be a day for the history books.
I've personally been angel investing in space companies since 2018, long before anyone was talking about space as an investable asset class.
While crypto has been broadly disappointing over the past several years, it turns out that Space is booming.
It pays to diversify investments and not go all in on one single asset class. I've lost quite a bit holding crypto bags to the ground, but my angel investing spree into early space companies is bringing some crazy returns.
I've invested seven figures (~$2,000,000) into a dozen space companies since 2019.
So I've been excited about this industry for almost a decade now (nearly the same time I've been investing in crypto).
I invested in SpaceX in 2019 at a 32B valuation, which at the time seemed like a crazy-high valuation.
My thought, though, was that Elon could pull something off and build out a key infra company, and that maybe by 2030 the company could be a trillion-dollar company IF the space industry expanded and became mainstream.
Well, 7 years later and 4-5 years earlier, that's become a reality. My small angel bet, on paper, is a ~55x return (less with dilution). And a number of my other early seed investments in space companies back in 2020 are yielding enormous returns, with several set to IPO shortly.
It felt kind of crazy writing small angel checks into space companies on the belief that those companies might well be the future's versions of the core gas, oil, electric, telecom, and railway companies.
What's even more exciting (and where I've been placing a lot of bets over the 2020-2023 period) is all the other space companies building something. While SpaceX is getting all the mainstream attention, it's also going to bring serious investor attention to the dozens (hundreds?) of smaller companies building space companies.
This entire sector, collectively called New Space, is worth watching.
I really believe that the East India Companies that dominated international trade in the early 1600s will, in some ways, be replicated in Space over the coming decade.
Whatever happens with SpaceX and the stock over the short term, I'm more excited about the long term for Space as an investable sector.
This is definitely a sector you will want to pay close attention to, now that SpaceX has brought mainstream attention to the space industry. There will still be new opportunities betting on future growth in this sector.
As for SpaceX, over the long term, I do feel it's going to be one of the fundamental infra companies building in this sector, and I think it will grow into a 5-10T company over the next decade. But there are OTHER companies building out early space infrastructure that might well become deca-billion- and even trillion-dollar companies. It is to those companies that I think there are gains to be had.
@OGDfarmer Thanks man. It's been a 6-year wait, and frankly, I had a lot of people think I was crazy when I started writing checks back 2019-2021 in space companies, but sometimes investing in crazy things way early pays off.
SpaceX at 1.75T is definitely on the expensive side. Can Elon work his salesman magic and bring in retail to hold the bag?
Yea sure, and probably likely. I wouldn't be a buyer at the ICO, other than maybe a flip over a 1-2 day period (IPOs UISUALLY go down hard). So probably better entries to be had for SpaceX other than buying an IPO bag.
Longer term, you can't deny what Musk has built here though and I think SpaceX is going to be one of THE foundational space empires. It will grow to the 10T company over the next decade. I think a long-term good bet, though not at IPO prices (under 500-1T seems juicy to me). Not sure it will get there though, but we will see.
But I think there will be a LOT of other very valuable companies built out over the next few years, fundamental space infra companies. These are more interesting to me to find and invest in
@Chuzi_Defi It's not even limited lol.
Crazy to buy in this short term hype.
Been interesting to watch what's happened, but I would not be a buyer of this.
I can see it doing as a nice charm though for women hanging on their purses though
@sharbel Omega is not AP, which operates on an exclusivity basis.
Omega pushes volume, AP pushes exclusivity.
I don't see the same dynamic here.
This is extreme brand dilution
@Napa_Fi 😫
Can’t we just delete the entire collection and pretend it never existed.
Kind of like what Disney is proposing to do with all the Star Wars and pretend it all never happened?
Omega is not AP lol.
They are not ultra-luxury watches. I would not even classify Omega as a luxury watch, just a step above Casio.
That's like comparing a Unico collab with Zara.
A more apt comparison would be Hermes creating a Birken collaboration with Michael Kors with the signature Birken look, with Michael Kors branded on the side.
I disagree.
But I'm coming from a watch holder/collector who owns AP watches.
I'm not happy as a collector, and I can't see any other AP holder who spent thousands acquiring their pieces happy about seeing Swatch mall kiosks selling plastic APs. Maybe if it had a different dial, but not the signature AP dial.
Maybe the company will expand its market here. There are a lot more $200 customers than $20,000 customers. But the more mass market success they obtain from moves like this, the more diminished the exclusivity factor, the less demand for the expensive models.
It's going to be interesting to watch how this impacts the watch market, though. Personally, I would sell my APs because I don't see this as beneficial to the value of their watches.
Yeah, it was the moment Azuki spiraled downhill.
We can leave the TCG efforts aside, but in terms of their actual web3 brand value (asset values), the OG collection bled out.
AP is a real company here with customers and physical products, but still, I think it's a similar comparison for the 'watch' holders who are facing serious dilution.
Going to be interesting seeing how the market begins to price this in, if at all.
If I wanted a beach watch, I would spring for a Casio G shock lol.
It’s a deranged, suicidal move that will alienate their existing customers and disincentivize new ones.
Why spring 30,000 usd for a watch when you can walk to your local mall Swatch stand and grab a plastic version for 200 usd…
Kind of the same thing azuki did for their OG holders: doubled the supply with nearly the same PFPs (elementals) that were less then 1/5 the price. To this day, it was a self destructive move that damaged and diluted the brand. Maybe they build around this by force but yea, it was a bad move for the İP and the holders getting diluted but maybe a good live for the company treasury
Saw a video showing the it’s a woman who is directing this change and she wants to make the brand more approachable.
I don’t think a single AP holder appreciates this move or what it’s going to do to the value of their brand. Maybe for the company revenue itself there is going to be some uplift, but I’m not convinced watering down your exclusive brand, which is the main selling attraction, for mass market is expanding mindshare here.