Planet Labs is doing a great job of raising the profile of NewSpace [1]. I met Will Marshall when I was interning at NASA Ames in 2007. He was setting up their

Planet Labs is doing a great job of raising the profile of NewSpace [1]. I met Will Marshall when I was interning at NASA Ames in 2007. He was setting up their Mission Design Center. I remember they were working on PhoneSat at the time [2]. There was generally a mood of change at Ames, backed by a great administrator, Pete Worden. I was at the 1st Startup Weekend dedicated to Space this weekend in Bremen, Germany [3]. It was a fascinating weekend and a great opportunity to explore many NewSpace ideas. Chris Boshuizen gave a remote talk on the Friday. They’re differentiating themselves from the competition through their high repeat rate and I think they have a lot of interesting avenues for growth ahead. It’s good to see institutional investors getting involved in NewSpace. Nikunj is a family friend; I’m looking forward to picking his brain about this deal and his view of the market. Space Angels Network [4] is also doing a great job of raising the profile of this new industry. Hopefully, we see a lot more investment in basic products and services that will open up a tremendous number of space-based applications in the coming decade. Congrats to the Planet Labs guys! [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NewSpace http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NewSpace [2] http://www.phonesat.org/ http://www.phonesat.org/ [3] http://www.up.co/communities/germany/bremen/startup-weekend/5485 http://www.up.co/communities/germany/bremen/startup-weekend/... [4] http://spaceangelsnetwork.com/ http://spaceangelsnetwork.com/