It's rare to witness an industry change in a matter of months. In the case of small satellites and the big data they generate, however, this is exactly what's happening. Since writing about the forces driving the "Mega-set" in these pages last August, the smallsat industry has seen increased merger-and-acqui-sition activity, a substantial increase in spacecraft launched, a myriad of new startups and a wave of new capital. I expect these trends to continue, if not accelerate, for the remainder of 2017 due to three primary drivers: While space investment has been trending upward for the past few years, mainstream venture capitalists are now taking notice. As announced in June, Sequoia was the lead on the Series A round by launch startup Vector. They were joined by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Shasta Ventures. Perhaps more than any single investment in 2017, this signals a milestone moment in the industry, as Sequoia is generally regarded by many as the smartest money in Silicon Valley.
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