You’ve heard us speak quite a bit recently about the space economy, and that’s for good reason. The final frontier is opening up a trillion-dollar commercial opportunity for ambitious entrepreneurs to launch new businesses into.

Some companies are deriving revenue directly as the picks-and-shovel providers — building the rockets, satellites, or space-related hardware and infrastructure. Others are harnessing the power of satellite-based technology — using PNT for precision timing or GPS for precision navigation. And ambitious entrepreneurs are coming up with new opportunities every month — from space tourism to weather forecasting to harnessing solar power more efficiently and directly from the sun.

This gives investors a huge number of options to choose from. A ton of space-interested companies are raising capital through SPACs, and several have stocks that are publicly-traded on American exchanges.

But with so many options available, how should investors approach the space economy? Is top-line growth the most important, and industry consolidation will make the strongest companies even stronger? Or are there less-obvious metrics that we should be paying more attention to?

To answer those questions, we’ve brought in two experts who are actively investing in outer space. Andrew Chanin is the CEO and co-founder of Procure AM and Micah Walter-Range is the President of Caelus Partners. Together, they created America’s very first Space-themed ETF, which trades with the ticker “UFO.”

In an exclusive interview with 7investing CEO Simon Erickson, Andrew and Micah describe why the space economy is taking off as an option for investors. They describe their methodical framework of their SPACE Index and a handful of their holding. They also explain several things that investors should consider when investing in space-themed companies, such as the geopolitical risks of international governments, the decision-making of management teams, and the importance of having a global marketing strategy.

In the final segment, the two also share their likelihoods of personally taking a space tourism flight and a few things they’re very interested in watching.

Publicly-traded companies mentioned in this interview include Rocket Lab, Sky Perfect, and Virgin Galactic. 7investing’s advisors or its guests may have positions in the companies mentioned.

Timestamps

00:00 – Overview and Introduction to the Space Economy

03:22 – How Procure is methodically structuring its SPACE Index

11:03 – Where are the biggest commercial opportunities?

15:11  – What role does NASA and governments play in the space economy?

21:24 – How to think about management, risk, and raising money via SPACs

29:21 – What other metrics should investors be considering to evaluate space companies?

41:17 – What are a few things that investors should be watching?