🚀Big Space Tech Expo Report: Our partner @TheMadMan and five of our portfolio companies spent two exciting days at @SpaceTechExpoEU in Bremen. The event made one thing very clear: Europe’s space industry has left the “science fair” phase. The conversation has shifted to hard power, hard tech, and hard revenue. (1) Space is now openly treated as critical defence and infrastructure. From secure comms and ISR to resilient navigation, satellites are no longer “nice to have”, they’re the nervous system of European security and industry. (2) The “small” in smallsats is only about form factor. The real question on everyone’s mind: who can put meaningful capability into orbit fast, reliably, and without torching a balance sheet? Constellations, rideshare economics, and new launch capacity in Europe were constant hallway topics. (3) AI and downstream applications have moved from buzzword to business. Operators want autonomy and margins, and customers want products not pixels. From tasking to anomaly detection to climate and infrastructure intelligence, AI-native space companies are suddenly the adults in the room. (4) A fourth theme is quietly emerging: Harnessing energy in space. High-power platforms, mega-arrays, and the building blocks of future space data centers. Portfolio companies present were: @asynchronics, @zaitra_io, @lifterospace, SI Robotics, and @_OrbitalMatter. You can find their company-specific learnings and updates in the comments.

--> @lifterospace embodied the “smallsats” theme: propulsion that lets operators do more with every kilogram they put into orbit. At Bremen, the team showcased their flight-proven propulsion system and hit exactly the right chord with the market. Dozens of new leads entered the pipeline, and the feedback consistently highlighted Liftero’s competitive edge in performance and reliability for NewSpace constellations. For us, the event served as a live validation that Liftero’s product is aligned with how both commercial and defence customers now think about access to orbit: smaller, faster, and much more manoeuvrable in an increasingly congested and contested environment.