Invested by Europe

João Falcão Serra leads industry and finance research at the European Space Policy Institute in Vienna. He explains how he tracks global investment in space companies and why European private funding is at record levels. He looks at the forces behind the boom, including defence demand, falling interest rates and the SpaceX IPO hype, and also points to a growing spread of investment in smaller economies like Finland, Bulgaria and Poland.

Rockets and satellites get the headlines. But what makes them work? Here are five technologies you've probably never heard of, but they're set to have a big impact on how rockets work and, even, on your electricity bill. We'll hear from the founders of companies working on: the pressure vessels inside every rocket and satellite; a green propellant to replace hydrazine, which can be stored for ten years and restarted in under thirty seconds; the aerospike engine, theoretically superior for sixty years and never yet demonstrated in flight; onboard software that lets satellites decide for themselves what to photograph; satellite data that helps power lines carry more electricity.Five technologies. None of them famous. All of them essential.

Tomas Jonsson leads the Cassini team at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Defence Industry and Space. It's the EU's space entrepreneurship programme. He describes how Europe's space sector has changed since 2019, with many more companies, real commercial growth and significant private investment. He also talks about the careers the sector offers beyond engineering, and about how companies in Poland, the Czech Republic, Scandinavia and the EU's smaller countries are catching up to the traditional big space economies of Germany, Italy and France.

Europe's space investment hit a record €1.4 billion in 2025. The first half of 2026 already surpassed that amount. We look at the grants, equity, venture debt and, for the first time, commercial bank lending pushing space up the financial agenda. You'll hear from venutre capital investors at Warsaw's OTB Ventures and the European Investment Fund, bankers at the European Investment Bank, and the European Space Policy Institute analyst who tracks where the money goes. Sateliot founder Jaume Sanpera explains why an EU loan is "much more than money". He also names the financial layer Europe needs to build next.

Space is Europe's "invisible infrastructure". Giancarlo Granero, who leads on the space economy at the European Commission, explains how the European Union's Cassini initiative turned €200 million into a venture ecosystem that raised €1 billion last year.

From SpaceX engineer to space investor: Bulent Altan, one of SpaceX's first hires, now leads Alpine Space Ventures. Backed by the European Investment Fund, Alpine Space's first fund invested in some of the amazing companies you've met in this series, like Blackwave and Reflex Aerospace. Bulent talks about deep-tech investing and why Europe needs its own space industrial base.

Space has always been strategic, but Russia's invasion of Ukraine made that fact impossible to ignore. We explore how satellites became a frontline of modern warfare, why Europe's dependence on non-European networks is a vulnerability it can no longer afford, and what the continent is doing to protect its assets in orbit. From attacks on commercial satellites to the race to build sovereign European constellations, this is the story of how Europe is learning to defend itself out in space.

The European Commission owns and runs Galileo and Copernicus, the space systems behind everything from your morning weather forecast to flood rescue operations. We hear from Lorena Boix Alonso, Deputy Director General for Space at the European Commission, about why space is now critical infrastructure, why Europe's strategic autonomy depends on it, and why the new space race is nothing like the old one. With the geopolitical landscape shifting fast and investment urgency growing, Lorena makes a good case for space as the single best argument for why Europe works better together.