NewSpaceVision

Karthik Gollapudi wasn’t planning to leave SpaceX. He was working on #Dragon, living in the kind of engineering environment where hardware is developed more like software: iterate fast, test continuously, find what broke, fix it, and keep moving. But he had started wondering: Why doesn’t everyone build hardware this way? So he called his future co-founder, Austin Spiegel, who had worked on manufacturing tools at #SpaceX. The answer? “Four different companies are actually trying to hire me to build this internally.” Today, Karthik is the Co-Founder & CEO of Sift, building what could become an observability layer for the physical world - bringing telemetry, logs, video and other data together to continuously understand whether complex hardware is actually healthy. And this gets particularly interesting as hardware becomes more software-rich and #AI starts changing not just how we operate machines, but how we design them in the first place. For our 50th episode (!) of the NSV Podcast, LiveEO CEOs Daniel Seidel and Sven Przywarra sat down with Karthik to talk about: 🚀 How SpaceX applies software development principles to hardware 🔍 Why hardware needs continuous observability - not occasional testing 📡 The challenge of making sense of telemetry, logs, video, and multiple time sources 🤖 How AI could fundamentally change the way physical systems are designed and built 💰 Lessons from funding SIFT & raising $70M+ 🎧 Full episode here: 🟢 https://lnkd.in/dM7y-H_2 🍎 https://lnkd.in/d-RRNB_2 📺 https://lnkd.in/dykQ_nYQ Special thanks to Sage Shahi and the SIFT team!

What do #investors actually want to hear? Koen Geurts, Senior Investment Manager at HTGF | High-Tech Gründerfonds, put it pretty clearly in our latest episode. Hint: it’s not about saying more. Watch the clip - and check out the full episode below for more insights you can use in your next pitch. Apple: https://lnkd.in/dAH45kAP Spotify: https://lnkd.in/dakT6KUF YouTube: https://lnkd.in/d7FJ2_fW

📰 Everyone remembers the headline: A #spacecraft landed on a comet. What most people don’t know is what actually happened in those moments. The lander didn’t just touch down - it bounced! Not once. Not twice. Three times. And for a while, no one knew if it would stabilize, or drift back into space. In this clip, Koen Geurts, who was in the German Aerospace Center (DLR) control room that day, as the mission's manager, walks through what it really felt like as the data came in. Listen to the full episode below, and discover more rare behind-the-scenes looks at iconic moments from the #space industry. 👇 Apple: https://lnkd.in/dAH45kAP Spotify: https://lnkd.in/dVhdRSfZ YouTube: https://lnkd.in/d7FJ2_fW

🚨New episode for your Thursday! Koen Geurts has a perspective many VCs don’t - he’s actually operated in space. After 15+ years in the industry - including working on the Rosetta mission and the Philae comet landing - he now backs early-stage space startups at HTGF | High-Tech Gründerfonds. In this episode, we get into: ☄️ What really happened during the “landing” on the comet - and why it bounced multiple times 📊 Why early-stage space investing is still largely conviction-driven, not data-driven 🕵️ Why some of the biggest opportunities are where others aren’t looking (like propulsion) 📉 Where Europe is falling short - not on talent or capital, but on execution and procurement 💡And which hyped ideas might not actually have a real business case If Europe wants to compete in space, funding alone won’t be enough. It’s about how - and where - that capital is deployed. 🎧 Full episode here: https://lnkd.in/dAH45kAP https://lnkd.in/dQBVMtXc https://lnkd.in/dX-2XWTy

When you test #rocket engines for a living, things don’t always go according to plan. Before founding ISPTech, Lukas Werling spent nearly a decade as deputy head of a propulsion test facility at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), where rocket engines were regularly pushed to their limits. In this clip, he shares what happens when tests don’t go as expected - and why moments like these teach engineers the most. 🎧 Listen to the full episode for more stories from the test benches: Apple: https://lnkd.in/djrdxtHb Spotify: https://lnkd.in/dZMPvv5G Other: https://lnkd.in/df7F5vq4

Getting into orbit is hard. Moving in orbit is, too. Our latest episode of the New Space Vision Podcast is live - with Lukas Werling, co-founder & CEO of ISPTech. After 13 years at Europe’s largest rocket engine test site in Lampoldshausen, Lukas spun out ISPTech to commercialize green chemical propulsion systems for satellites. Lukas walks us through: 🚀 Running propulsion test benches at DLR 💥 Exploding engines (safely) 🧪 How chemical propulsion works 💰 Raising VC for chemical propulsion 📈 Scaling from 2 founders to ~40 people ... and lots more - don't miss it. 🎧 Listen here: Apple: https://lnkd.in/djrdxtHb Spotify: https://lnkd.in/dZMPvv5G Other: https://lnkd.in/df7F5vq4

Last week on the NSV Podcast, we asked investor Filip Kocian whether Expansion focuses on software or hardware. His answer? Space is both - which is exactly where the opportunity lies. In this highlight, Filip explains why companies that combine hardware and software can unlock more value - and why that makes #space such an attractive sector from an investment perspective. Check out the full episode here if you haven't already: Spotify: https://lnkd.in/dsEqrcBr Apple: https://lnkd.in/dJC3P_ZB YouTube: https://lnkd.in/dtck6DqE

Europe talks about space sovereignty. But sovereignty isn't just built with policy - it's built with capital. On the latest episode of the podcast, investor Filip Kocian joins us to unpack the financial infrastructure behind Europe’s #space ambitions - and why funding decisions today will define the industry’s future. Space is no longer niche. It’s industrial strategy, #defense, and economic resilience rolled into one... yet capital markets still struggle to match the scale of those goals. Listen here: Spotify: https://lnkd.in/dsEqrcBr Apple: https://lnkd.in/dJC3P_ZB YouTube: https://lnkd.in/dtck6DqE In our conversation, Filip explains: 🚀 Why space investing is becoming industrial policy 💰 What separates investable companies from science projects ⚖️ How dual-use tech is reshaping venture strategy 🌍 The structural gap between Europe and the US 🔭 Where the next generation of winners will emerge Thanks for joining, Filip!

Most people quit after one rejection. Some push through three, maybe four. Max Gulde hit fourteen. He wasn’t even trying to build a startup yet. He was a scientist at Fraunhofer EMI, trying to get funding for a simple idea: “Let’s measure Earth’s temperature from space.” Why did the 15th application succeed? Not because the idea suddenly became “hot.” Not because the team got lucky. But because rejection forced them to clarify the tech, strengthen the case, and make the experiment impossible to ignore. That ISS experiment ended up proving the core concept constellr is now built on. Rejection doesn’t measure quality. Sometimes “no” just means “not yet.” Here’s the story, straight from Max, in our latest #NSVPodcast highlight ↓ Full episode in comments.

What if you could take the temperature of the entire planet - accurately, continuously, and in real time? That’s what constellr is building. And on this week’s episode of the NSV #Podcast, co-founder & CEO Max Gulde joined us to explain why thermal data is about to reshape Earth observation as we know it. From agriculture and urban heat to defense, industrial monitoring, and early-warning systems - temperature is the most overlooked, yet most powerful environmental variable we have. And Constellr is turning it into a global #data layer. 🎧 Listen here: 🟢 Spotify: https://lnkd.in/ejmFmXYw 🍎 Apple: https://lnkd.in/eh99G6cZ 🌐 Other: https://lnkd.in/e-_-3R3J Max also walks us through Constellr’s very unexpected origin story: 🔥 14 failed grant applications 🚀 An #ISS experiment that only worked after the astronaut “turned it off and on again” 🛰️ Two satellites now in orbit - with commercially relevant data landing this month If you care about the future of EO, climate intelligence, or dual-use tech, this is a conversation worth your time.