Calibre interview: Bogdan Gogulan, CEO at NewSpace Capital

About 70 per cent of the money flowing into space is spent getting things off the ground. But launch is just 1 per cent of the sector. I had no idea about this until I spoke to Bogdan Gogulan, CEO and Managing Partner of NewSpace Capital. His private equity firm, founded in 2017, is the only one that backs growth-stage space companies solving major challenges in their field – in some cases, challenges once thought intractable.

By Sam Cranny-Evans, editor of Calibre Defence. Published on February 25, 2026.

Company profile: NewSpace Capital

“We’re a growth-stage private equity fund focusing on the scale-up of capital,” Bogdan explains. “There is less technical or market risk than in venture capital. We give companies the capital they need to scale their operations, and the network and knowledge they need to hyperscale.” And why space? “We sometimes have to explain to people why they should care about it, what’s so interesting about it,” Bogdan says. “We tell them that it’s a new asset class; that it’s doubled in size in the last ten years; that it’s expected to triple in the next ten.” He isn’t wrong. McKinsey put the value of the space sector at $630 billion in 2024, and it’s on track to hit $1.8 trillion by 2035. That sets it on par with the semiconductor sector. It’s growing faster than the global economy.

“Our focus is on the ground side of the sector, including the supply chain and applications,” says Bogdan. “The companies that meet these criteria often serve both commercial and defence clients – they’re ‘dual-use’ – which means they have a more stable income and see stronger growth over time. There are also more opportunities to exit.” Investors are said to “exit” when they sell their shares or the company goes public.

“We’re looking at shorter holding periods of 3 to 5 years,” says Bogdan. “That’s why we aim to hyperscale the businesses we invest in – so that they get to the exit faster.”

What sets NewSpace Capital apart is that they are the only private equity firm focused exclusively on space companies at the growth stage. Bogdan tells me that his firm is interested in companies that show commercial maturity as well as technical expertise and vision. But the team also targets companies solving real challenges – for example, congestion in the radio frequency spectrum and the inability of satellites to carry out on-board data-processing. The latter challenge, which is being addressed by NewSpace’s portfolio company Simera Sense, could be “transformative”: as it is, data must be sent back to Earth to be processed, which is extremely costly.

The institutional expertise of the NewSpace Capital team, as well as across their Industry Advisory Board, is highly unusual. It makes them an attractive investment option for deeptech founders keen to work with an investment team that not only understands their technology but can give them useful guidance and accelerate their progress – something the average tech investor simply can’t provide. Bogdan stresses that though companies often approach NewSpace Capital looking for investment, the firm is selective. “We look at companies with proven products that are of a certain size in terms of revenue, valuation, and people,” he says. “We ensure they’re number one in their market for what they make, and we ensure that we take a board seat and an active role in their development. This is to help them get to the exit more quickly.” Due diligence often takes months.

Not that Bogdan takes credit for the success of these companies – but believes they make a crucial contribution. “They’d be successful without us,” he emphasises. “But with us, they get there faster. We help them to get contracts, to secure meetings with customers. We spend a lot of time with them; it’s unusual to be this involved.” The firm has a broad network of contacts in space, defence and other industries. Through the NewSpace Capital network, companies can reach the right government buyers. This can take “months, if not years” off the process of selling. 

The firm now backs a range of companies, from ICEYE, the Finnish operator of the world’s largest constellation of SAR satellites and nearly a household name, to advanced materials specialists FibreCoat, led by Dr Robert Brüll, who spoke to Calibre recently. Three of NewSpace Capital’s portfolio companies were featured in TIME magazine’s list of Best Inventions for 2025 – a reflection, surely, of their standing at the bleeding edge of the space industry. One of the latest NewSpace investments is the satellite manufacturer K2, which recently announced it would launch a three-spacecraft mission on a SpaceX FalconX rocket in 2027.

Bogdan’s background includes time at Defendec, an Estonian firm that builds wireless border tech, and four years at American Express in analytics. His team includes Felix Von Schubert, a private equity veteran who is chairman and chief investment officer, and Dr. Slava Turyshev, a leading space scientist working at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Space, an expanding market

Space is a vast market. In 2024, the global space economy hit a record $613 billion, according to the Space Report. McKinsey estimates that by 2035, it will reach $1.8 trillion. So its current period of growth doesn’t look like it’s slowing down any time soon. “Space has been growing at 10 to 15% per year,” Bogdan says, adding that the engine for that growth has been the private sector. This is a real change: space used to be for the military; governments were the ones with budgets for rockets and satellites. (Incidentally, one of the global hubs for commercial space is Luxembourg, where NewSpace Capital was founded.)

In the beginning, the biggest challenge for private players related to launch. That’s why so much money still flows into this segment. “You can’t build satellite infrastructure if you can’t go to space,” says Bogdan. “For a long time, Russia was the primary provider of launch and others were horrendously expensive.” Even today, NASA projects still run over time and budget. This is changing, but slowly: in 2024, the US Government Accountability Office said overruns dropped to $4.4 billion from $7.6 billion the year before, and delays fell from 20.9 years to 14.5.

Companies like SpaceX have changed the way people talk about launch. “Think of what Starlink is doing, launching thousands of satellites,” Bogdan says. “You couldn’t do that 15 years ago. Elon didn’t want to build SpaceX, he wanted to build Starlink. But to make Starlink work he had to build SpaceX and reduce the costs.” 

Now, there are thousands of operational satellites in orbit, and space is a ubiquitous feature of modern life. Most of us don’t realise quite how fundamental space infrastructure is to the way we live and work. Bogdan uses the financial system as an example. “The timing of all modern financial trades happens based on the atomic clock that is orbiting in space,” he says. “Every trade relies on knowing this time and the communications have to be timed and then reconciled. That happens using the space-based clock. The modern financial system wouldn’t work without space.” Nor would apps like Uber, he adds: “Uber relies on satellite positioning, navigation, and timing to connect users with drivers in real time.” As space-enabled technology increased in sophistication, it became more and more widely used among normal businesses.

“We used to have satellites in geosynchronous orbits,” explains Bogdan. “They’d be the size of a bus and cost millions. But now, because of miniaturisation, satellites are the size of shoe boxes and they cost a few hundred thousand. They’re basically flying iPhones that you can load different apps on. Because they’re smaller, they can sit in lower-earth orbit, where there’s lower latency, or ‘lag’.” These satellites are also within the magnetic field of the earth and so protected from hard radiation. That means they’re suited to commercial, off-the-shelf applications. “The options in the supply chain are now much more diverse and the capabilities are much more developed.” That’s where NewSpace Capital sees the greatest opportunity for growth, and profit.

Calibre comment

Private equity and venture capital are playing a growing part in defence by helping companies grow fast. Firms like ICEYE show how private money and expert guidance can speed up progress. These companies might survive by themselves; but with support, they can reach government buyers faster and benefit when big defence deals come in. This is true across defence, but it is clearest in space, where dual-use applications make sense for both militaries and markets. ICEYE’s synthetic aperture radar satellites support predictive insurance, mining and disaster aid. FibreCoat, meanwhile, develops materials equally suitable for drones and cars. Elsewhere, commercial firms are teaming up with defence with a view to combining their expertise and exploiting the dual-use opportunity. A good example is the new link between Helsing and Loft Orbital.