Composite image of Europe at night. Photo: NASA Earth Observatory/ Joshua Stevens.

A new report from the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) shows that Europe’s space sector attracted a record 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) in investment in 2024, a 54% year increase over the previous year. 

According to the “Space Venture 2024: Global Investment Dynamics” report released June 20, European companies targeting security accounted for a record 40% of the total investment. 

ESPI believes that Europe’s space sector will benefit from increased defense spending in Europe, noting gaps in European defense capabilities in intelligence, surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) and secure satcom and supply chains for these capabilities. ESPI expects the trend in 2024 to continue in 2025. 

“Security is now playing an increasingly important role in Europe’s space venture ecosystem, driving investment and, even more critically, creating demand for services and products. Moreover, the Trump administration’s review of the U.S. foreign policy led Europe to rethink its reliance in its strategic autonomy calculus. Therefore, the unfolding year is expected to at the very least continue, if not accelerate, this trend,” the report says.

The report noted that U.S. ventures secured 41% of global space investments in 2014, and this was the first time since 2019 the total fell below half. U.S. companies accounted for 2.9 billion euros ($3.4 billion) of investment. 

ESPI attributed some of the decrease in U.S. space investment to higher interest rates, the fact that many companies have already exited through special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) mergers and acquisitions, and a mature space venture ecosystem where companies have greater revenue and longer runways. 

The report noted that European countries and China are seeing the first startups grow into scaleups leading to higher rounds, while maintaining “vibrant” early-stage funding. 

ESPI noted that investment in European space ventures has generally trended upward since 2014, but the growth seen in 2024 is the largest single-year increase in that period.

The European firms that secured the highest amount of investments in 2024 were Preligens, The Exploration Company, Iceye, Unseenlabs, and Isar Aerospace. Preligens was an acquisition, Safran acquired the company for 220 million euro.