Big investor warns Europe relies too much on SpaceX

One of Europe’s most prominent venture capitalists has warned that the continent is dangerously overdependent on SpaceX for both defense and space infrastructure, according to the Financial ￰0￱ Liautaud, managing partner at Balderton Capital, said European governments are too tied to the United States when it comes to satellite launches and ￰1￱ argued that “a growing part of military supremacy will be fought in space,” but right now Europe is at a disadvantage. “We need to be more self-sufficient,” Bernard said, adding that reliance on Elon Musk’s company poses “a huge risk.” Bernard’s comments come as defense-related tech funding in Europe has ￰2￱ Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, NATO countries increased their defense budgets, and that wave of money helped create dozens of new ￰3￱ of these firms are developing drones, battlefield software, and advanced defense ￰4￱ Bernard stressed that none of this solves Europe’s weak position in ￰5￱ pointed to the dominance of SpaceX as proof of Europe’s ￰6￱ directs money into European defense start-ups Balderton Capital, originally founded 25 years ago as an offshoot of ￰7￱ firm Benchmark before going fully independent in 2007, has long invested in European ￰8￱ has backed more than 250 start-ups, including Revolut, Wayve, and Dream ￰9￱ recent years the firm has started channeling money into what it calls “sovereign” bets, projects designed to boost Europe’s ￰10￱ include Proxima Fusion, a nuclear fusion company, and Quantum Systems, a drone ￰11￱ year Balderton co-led a $160 million round for The Exploration Company, a Franco-German ￰12￱ investment was done with Plural, another venture ￰13￱ Exploration Company is working on several projects: a capsule that can transport cargo to the International Space Station, a rocket, and a lunar ￰14￱ pointed to this deal as an example of how venture money can support space independence, but he emphasized that Europe’s current capacity is still nowhere near ￰15￱ the same time, Europe’s defense ecosystem is ￰16￱ fact that start-ups are increasingly included in government defense procurement programs shows a shift in how the region works with private ￰17￱ is a major change compared to the ￰18￱ players face tough rivals in ￰19￱ race The head of The Exploration Company, Hélène Huby, a former Airbus executive, said at Italian Tech Week that Europe has not built up enough strength in space.

“We are quite weak right now in Europe regarding this space-based infrastructure,” she said . Hélène added that space represents a huge market because of demand from telecommunications, earth imaging, and defense, but she admitted that European companies lag ￰20￱ challenge is ￰21￱ , now valued at around $400 billion, is the most dominant player in global launches and ￰22￱ Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, another well-funded U. S. firm, is also a ￰23￱ leaves European groups facing an uphill climb with fewer resources and smaller ecosystems to rely ￰24￱ the venture capital world, not every partner is as ￰25￱ Chandratillake, another Balderton executive, explained that investing in defense companies requires a different view of risk compared to consumer tech.

“Even in a venture capital industry where the majority of tech start-ups are expected to fail, backing defense and related companies requires a different attitude to risk,” Suranga ￰26￱ he also noted that things have changed dramatically. “Twenty-five years ago, in trying to solve these problems, one of the last things that Europe would have done would have been to turn to start-ups,” Suranga said. “Today that is a key ingredient of what the solution looks like.” Get up to $30,050 in trading rewards when you join Bybit today