Space business at its peak: Over 12 billion dollars invested, the sky is dominated by China and the USA

Space infrastructure is increasingly seen as a strategic national priority and countries are competing for investment to secure a geopolitical advantage, notes Reuters.

Investments in that sector reached record levels in 2025, with private sector investment jumping 48 percent to $12.4 billion, including $3.8 billion in the fourth quarter, Seraphim Space data show.

Funding exceeded the previous highest level, recorded in 2021, and marked the full recovery of the sector from the decline in 2022, with stronger growth than the venture capital market as a whole.

The U.S. dominated investment last year at $7.3 billion, or about 60 percent of the global total, supported by lavish spending on launch services and defense-related programs such as the Pentagon’s Golden Dome initiative. The amount was more than twice as high as in 2024.

In December, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order designating space as a key priority for national security and the economy, which, according to investors’ expectations, will increase funding for the space technology segment.

Investments in Europe increased by some 25 percent, to approximately 2.2 billion dollars, the report shows. Asia, on the other hand, remained at a high level, with approximately billions of dollars invested in China in accelerated domestic launches and satellite production.

“The European space industry was divided along national borders, resulting in overlapping programs, higher costs and slower decision-making,” the bank concludes, with the open question whether the EU can truly compete with the US and China without the support of the American Starlink or an alternative in the form of propellant rockets with higher payloads and the possibility of multiple use.

The year that has just begun will be crucial for the space sector, the bank concludes, with the momentum of financing fueled at the world level by “geopolitical dynamics and the continuous support of governments for strategic space capacities.

The incentive will be the integration of artificial intelligence in space hardware and in analytics and possibly SpaceX’s initial public offering of shares (IPO), according to Seraphim Space.

“The potential IPO of the private company SpaceX could serve as a powerful catalyst, further confirming the status of space technology as a major asset category and opening a clearer path to IPOs for the growing group of companies in the late stage of development in the segment of these technologies,” said investment analyst at Seraphim Space Lucas Bishop.