Space

IQT began investing in Commercial Space technology as early as 2008, when it was still unclear to many inside and outside government that private businesses could offer useful capabilities in the domain. Among the areas we have focused on are providing our government partners with lower cost access to space; enabling alternative sources of remote-sensing data; reducing the cost for lower priority tasking; offloading analyst workloads with automated imagery analytics; and reducing tasking to collection time.

In 2013, IQT saw a revolution happening in commercial small satellite technology, ranging from novel launch systems to new, more advanced analytic applications. We called this market shift “Space 3.0” and the following year IQT conducted its first Commercial Space Market Survey and built a Commercial Space Architecture that has served as the foundation for our Space investment strategy ever since. This architecture lays out the various technical building blocks needed to deliver key capabilities for maximum mission impact.

Since 2008, IQT has invested in 50+ Commercial Space startup companies that are developing everything from satellite constellations, to launch vehicles, and from imagery-analysis tools to enabling component technologies. We were an early investor in many of these companies, seeing the potential of innovative space technology to enhance national security and other areas. The sector will continue to evolve as companies mature and new markets develop, and we believe these trends present exciting opportunities to leverage new products and services to lower operating costs and provide innovative and game-changing capabilities.