Shakeups and swaps (7/18/22)

Good morning, and happy Monday. SpaceX tied its 2021 launch record over the weekend and we’re only 54% of the way through the year.

In today's newsletter:📊 Q2 funding data 🔁 Roscosmos shakeup 📲 Payload webinar🗓️ The week ahead

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Q2 2022 Venture Fundraising

It’s been a rough start to the year for startup financing. In fact, Q2 saw the largest quarterly drop in venture funding in a decade. Higher-than-expected inflation growth, rising interest rates, and an energy crisis in Europe continue to threaten institutional capital deployment. VC-backed public listings reached a 13-year quarterly low, with eight completed this quarter as IPO liquidity has practically evaporated.

Space has largely been a mixed bag, with private investments this quarter up 32% from the previous quarter, but down 45% since last year. According to a new report by Space Capital, space infrastructure companies brought in $2.5B of private investment in Q2, largely driven by SpaceX’s $1.7B funding round (68% of the total).

Payload’s POV: "The companies that can generate real paying customers today are the ones that have the best chance of navigating the fundraising vacuum we're in,” Payload's Mo Islam recently told Axios. “If you fall into the 2nd or 3rd order business model and you don't have 12-18 months of runway, government contracts to bridge the gap to commercial orders will be critical."

Here are the top deals this quarter, ranked by size:

1. SpaceX, $1.73B (Series Q)

2. ExPace Technology, $237M (Series B)

3. Capella Space, $97M (Series C–more here)

4. Xinjinghe Laser Technology Development, $79M (Series D)

5. OrienSpace, $65M (Series A)

6. Apis Cor, $35M (Series A)

7. Dawn Aerospace, $30M (Series A)

8. X-BOW, $27M (Series A)

9. Muon Space, $25M (Series A)

10. Adranos Energetics, $20M (Series A)

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Space Trampolines are Out

Moscow removed Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin from his position on July 15, as part of a wider shake-up in the Russian government. No official reason was given for his ousting.

Rogozin will be replaced by Yuri Borisov, who was previously the deputy prime minister for defense and space.

Rogozin: Rogozin doubled down on his penchant for inflammatory remarks as Russia’s war in Ukraine escalated, which has led to tension with current and former NASA officials and astronauts.

His fervor against Western sanctions led to wild threats, like stranding astronauts on the ISS. This pushed NASA to make a rare rebuke of its biggest partner in space, after three cosmonauts posed with flags considered political propaganda on the ISS earlier this month.

What’s next for him: It is unclear what’s next for Rogozin, who has headed the Russian space agency since 2018. Russian news sources have suggested he’ll be placed in a new government post. Some local tabloids even speculated a position in Ukraine. The only public remark from Rogozin came in the form of a post on his Telegram account, in which he thanked Roscosmos.

• According to Roscosmos, Rogozin’s achievements included "a record 86 successful launches in a row, construction of the Russian segment of the ISS, and flight tests for a powerful inter-continental ballistic missile."

The new Roscosmos head

Former arms chief Borisov comes into the top role from a life-long military career. As deputy prime minister, he ran the show on military and space issues, including weapons production. Borisov’s removal from this role hints at greater changes in the Russian weapons program in response to battleground and logistical struggles seen in Ukraine. Heading the state-owned space agency, however, is hardly a demotion.

The timing: President Vladimir Putin ordered the change just before NASA and Roscosmos announced a deal to integrate flights and crews on the ISS, a rare instance of cooperation amid geopolitical tension.

According to a NASA statement, integrating crews like this with American astronauts on Soyuz and Russian cosmonauts on Crew Dragon is essential to safe ISS operations. The first confirmed seats will be filled by cosmonaut Anna Kikina and astronaut Frank Rubio.

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Webinar Alert

Its time for another marketing webinar with our Ari Lewis, who will be joined by Alicia Stump from Kepler and Dave Hebert from Astroscale. This time, we'll be talking about how to market to the US government.

Topics include:

• How to reach the "right" government audience

• The overlap between federal marketing and corporate marketing

• Why you need to focus on marketing to the federal government

• Where and when to spend advertising dollars

In Other News

• Russian cruise missiles struck Yuzhmash’s rocket plant in Dnipro, Ukraine, killing three people, the BBC reports.

• The UAE plans to develop a constellation of SAR satellites using a new $816M fund meant to bolster the country’s space sector.

• SpaceX launched 53 Starlink satellites over the weekend. This was the 13th flight for the mission’s first-stage Falcon 9 booster.

• Airbus shared new 15cm satellite imagery from the Pléiades Neo constellation.

The View from Space

More JWST content! In this infrared image captured by Webb’s NIRCam instrument during commissioning, Jupiter appears next to its moon Europa. The planet’s Great Red Spot looks white due to image processing, and the dark area to its left is Europa’s shadow.