A few months ago a good friend of mine wanted to get my views on Portal Space, who had just raised a “$17.5m oversubscribed Seed Round”. I thought it might be helpful to show my thought process and approach to early-stage venture investing on an example.
I usually follow a very simple 5-step pattern for initial explorations:
- Who else in that space, how are the different, have we met them?
This is NOT a qualitative assessment or judgement! We are in the fact-finding stage. Who else is in the market, and against whom are we betting? Who is funding them? Assuming that they are all smart competitors with great financial backers and experienced leaders, there is probably a reason they chose their approach, domain, sector, go-to-market strategy … I would stay far away from judging technology – if I would know what works and what doesnt, and actually HOW it works, then why am I not the CTO of a space company? Think about it … - What challenges does the company face, what are potential vulnerabilities?
This is NOT a test for viability! What does the company have to be really good at? What qualities would I look for in an executive team and investors? Is what they are planning somewhat sidestepping these challenges (genius!)? Is the timeframe and scale something that aligns with my risk profile? - What’s the resulting investor framing?
What do I need to believe to be true to find conviction? - What is their category-breaking secret weapon? And what are some counterfactuals?
Every startup will sooner or later talk about their “secret sauce” or “ultimate goal” or “trojan horse” etc. These are ways to completely change the business dynamic and create venture-adequate growth. - Internalize Externalities.
If the startup is successful and becomes a ubiquitous, what implications does that have for a net-positive world: What impacts will it have, and where would I have to invest NEXT, in fund N+1 or N+2, to counteract negative side effects? For me, this is often the sad and most frustrating part. If there is no light at the end of the tunnel (some remote potential that I could leave the world at least net-neutral) then I have a hard time finding conviction.
This is especially interesting in this case: scroll to the bottom and read why Dual-Use Ambiguity Becomes Untenable.
About Portal Space Systems
You can google what the company is all about. In a nutshell: Portal Space Systems is a Seattle-area startup developing a new class of highly maneuverable spacecraft for dynamic space operations. Their flagship platform, Supernova, is a 500 kg satellite bus powered by a novel solar thermal propulsion system—offering nuclear-like performance without the regulatory burden of nuclear reactors. Supernova is designed to rapidly reposition between orbits, enabling missions from low Earth orbit (LEO) to geostationary orbit (GEO) in hours, and even to cislunar space in days. Their key innovations are
- A multi-role, payload-agnostic platform engineered for ultra-high delta-V (up to 6 km/s), enabling rapid orbital transfers and repositioning (Supernova Spacecraft).
- They utilize concentrated sunlight to heat ammonia-based propellant, producing thrust with performance comparable to nuclear thermal propulsion but without radioactive materials (Solar Thermal Propulsion, STP).
- Their products are designed for both commercial and defense applications, including rapid response, orbital debris mitigation, and space domain awareness (Mission Agility).
The following was jotted down in about 30 minutes over WhatsApp, and I cleaned it up a bit for a blog post; sanitized some content that is proprietary knowledge; and expanded on the counterfactual scenarios. But it is what it is.
Key Competitors & Their Propulsion Types
1. Impulse Space
- Helios: Methalox, high-thrust chemical
- Mira: Storable bipropellant for smaller payloads and last-mile delivery
- Approach: Simple, brute-force propulsoin; less agile but operational today
2. Astroscale
- ELSA-d: Monopropellant chemical propulsion
- Focused on debris removal with precision rendezvous
- Approach: Initially focused on niche market (for a reason!); has limited propulsion scalability (doesnt need it, cheaper)
3. True Anomaly
- Jackal: Chemical propulsion for tactical military applications
- High-thrust, short-duration engagements (e.g., inspection/pursuit)
- Approach: Higher immediate thrust (fast reaction time and catchup fast), but not reusable or efficient over time
4. Blue Origin
- Blue Ring: Hybrid platform (chemical + electric)
- Designed for large payloads and hosting services
- Approach: Larger scale, not optimized for agile repositioning or rapid maneuvering
5. Exotrail
- ExoMG: Hall-effect electric thrusters (coooool!)
- High efficiency, extremely low thrust
- Approach: Good if you have time, large distances; impractical for responsive maneuvers
6. Momentus
- Vigoride/Ardoride: Microwave electrothermal with water
- Approach: Middle-ground tech, but limited thrust and slow maneuvering
7. Quantum Space
- Ranger: High-thrust bipropellant tug for cislunar delivery
- Approach: Heavy-duty, not nimble
Strategic and Business Weaknesses of Portal Space
Always assume the tech works as claimed, here are four core strategic vulnerabilities:
1. Category Creation Risk
Portal sits between established propulsion paradigms. Investors must ask: Is the market ready to value agility and delta-V per dollar over raw thrust or propellant efficiency? While Supernova’s delta-V envelope is compelling, many institutional buyers (especially commercial) still think in CapEx cycles built around launch vehicles and static orbital slots.
==> Portal may face a market education burden akin to early reusable launch advocates—tech ahead of doctrine. Do they perhaps have some shortcuts (people, processes, network) to lower customer acquisition costs?
2. Misalignment with Risk-Averse Primes and Bureaucracies
While Portal is positioned as dual-use, large procurement programs often prefer proven platforms and vendor familiarity. Portal’s elegance (moderate thrust, high reuse) may be too “novel” for defense primes and too “overkill” for commercial ops. The have secured multiple SBIR and STRATFI contracts with minimal dilution, suggesting credible early validation. Yet the path to revenue scale depends on unlocking multi-year defense contracts or building recurring satellite servicing demand.
==> Risk of getting “stuck in the middle”—too agile for entrenched primes, too slow to scale a commercial SaaS-like cadence. Do they have a better, clear positioning behind closed doors (given that I only know their publicly announced agenda and positioning, which might be intentionally crafted rather vaguely)?
3. Long Burnway to Recurring Revenue
High Delta-V performance is exciting, but most revenue is still project-based (SBIR, STRATFI). Without recurring revenue from a servicing network, investors may see capital tied up in hardware and burn rate. Hardware-as-a-platform businesses generally scale slowly, and require persistent government support or huge upfront infrastructure bets.
==> It would be good to understand where Portal’s “as-a-service” business model really begins.
4. Path Dependency on Solar Illumination
Even though solar thermal sidesteps nuclear regulation, it inherits its own constraints: They can operate only when the Sun is available introduces complexity in eclipse-heavy missions or cislunar dark-side operations. Competitive systems like Helios or Jackal don’t have this dependency and can operate anytime, anywhere.
==> While Portal’s roadmap hints at future nuclear adaptation, this transition (to replace solar with a reactor) is nontrivial. Different safety, regulatory, thermal integration, and public perception issues arise — potentially turning a strength into a distraction. What are mitigating factors, missions, or technologies? Is there a principles-based thesis on nuclear transition that is a valid narrative?
Investor Framing Question
Portal doesn’t sell propulsion. It sells agility. So the core investment thesis must be:
Does agility in space have pricing power and defensibility that justifies backing a new propulsion platform?
To write a check, investors must believe:
- Orbital agility becomes a commodity; and that
- Solar-thermal propulsion becomes the dominant delivery mechanism for that commodity.
- (propulsion tech doesn’t matter in the long-term because propulsion tech becomes a commodity and an interoperable platform is more important)
Otherwise, the product risks being a beautiful bridge to nowhere.
Secret Weapon
Portal Space seems to eye the Space Development Agency’s (SDAs) data capture side. I like the revenue potential of “custom tasking” if they operate their own fleet or offer a managed service. Given their agility, they would collect data much faster and could likely create better models for approaches in both civil and defense applications. It’s intriguing. It’s one of my emerging thesis:
Emerging Thesis: data responsiveness, not just resolution or revisit, will define orbital advantage.
But if we’re to challenge that view rigorously, here are five counterfactual scenarios that surface where “custom tasking” might falter — especially under different assumptions about market structure, government behavior, and systems integration. These counterfactuals are NOT an arguments against custom tasking — they are conditions under which its margins, defensibility, or value creation could erode. They are useful to sharpen my underwriting thesis: When and why does responsiveness win? What market structures preserve the economic leverage of owning or managing maneuverable orbital assets?
1. Counterfactual: Government Chooses Full Verticalization
The U.S. Space Force (and SDA) decide that orbital ISR is too strategic to rely on commercial operators for tasking agility. Rather than delegate dynamic tasking, the government invests in sovereign, in-house LEO/MEO constellations. Commercial players become sensor payload providers or fixed-capacity carriers, but don’t capture the margins of on-demand intelligence. For example, post-9/11, the U.S. doubled down on vertically integrated intelligence assets; NGA was reluctant to rely on commercial imagery tasking beyond specific, low-sensitivity targets.
==> Custom tasking revenue collapses into fixed procurement contracts. Space becomes a government-controlled utility rather than a dynamic, service-based market.
2. Counterfactual: Latency Isn’t the Bottleneck
Fusion pipelines — not orbital positioning! — prove to be the real constraint on actionable intelligence. Even with ultra-agile orbital assets, the ground-based systems (analysts, AI, tactical interfaces) cannot absorb, process, or respond fast enough. In this world, the ROI of custom tasking flattens. A former National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) director is often quoted as “We don’t lack sensors, we lack the ability to trust what they’re telling us fast enough to act.”. But I’m not sure if that was Vice Admiral Frank Whitworth (who became the Director of the NGA on June 3, 2022) or perhaps Vice Admiral Robert Sharp, who served as NGA Director prior to Whitworth, delivered a keynote address at the 2022 USGIF GEOINT Symposium, where he discussed the agency’s contributions to the Russia-Ukraine crisis and emphasized the importance of timely and trustworthy geospatial intelligence.
==> The economic premium of maneuverable or taskable satellites diminishes. What matters most is data completeness and integration, not responsiveness per se.
3. Counterfactual: Tasking Becomes a Commodity
Open standards and proliferated LEO assets lead to an API-ification of tasking. Anyone can route a request to a constellation, priced dynamically. Custom tasking becomes a lowest-cost, fungible input in a larger ISR or commercial analytics chain. No one player controls the customer experience or captures margin. For example, in cloud computing early providers made margins on “custom capacity,” but over time, commoditized VMs created a race to the bottom.
==> Value flows downstream to integrators or software platforms. Hardware operators become bandwidth providers, and pricing power disappears.
4. Counterfactual: Adversaries Saturate or Obfuscate Targets
In high-consequence scenarios (Taiwan, Eastern Europe), adversaries flood the orbital theater with decoys, obscurants, or cyber-deceptive telemetry. Tasking becomes less useful because the underlying data signal is intentionally degraded or manipulated. Responsiveness loses value when veracity is uncertain. I wrote about that problem in Cognitive Breach: Defense of Cognitive Infrastructure. The result could be that data integrity is more important than data timeliness. Tasking value collapses under contested space conditions.
==> “Custom tasking” doesn’t deliver useful insight under adversarial conditions. Customers revert to multi-source corroboration or historical-pattern models (still good, as Portal Space has hopefully lots of historical data by that time, but not a “secret weapon” anymore).
5. Counterfactual: Autonomous Systems Don’t Need Human-Directed Tasking
Tactical autonomy matures faster than expected. UAVs, loitering munitions, and mobile systems begin self-tasking from onboard inference. The demand for human-directed, ground-originated space tasking shrinks. Space ISR becomes a low-latency backup, not a primary node.
==> Custom tasking becomes a niche use case. Most decision loops close without orbital confirmation, relegating space-based tasking to strategic, not tactical, windows.
Internalizing Externalities
If Portal Space works — not just as a tech company, but as a reconfigurable orbital mobility layer — then we must assume the space domain enters a new phase of persistent maneuverability, ubiquitous sensing, and orbital optionality. That changes not only what becomes possible, but what becomes required — in capital allocation, infrastructure, regulation, and societal absorption capacity. Here is a systems-level breakdown of second- and third-order implications and the investment mandates they trigger.
1. Orbital Maneuverability as Infrastructure Layer
Just-in-time orbital repositioning becomes the standard, not the exception. We will need a consensus ledger for space movement. Think air traffic control meets blockchain meets rules of engagement.
Required Investments:
- Space Traffic Operating Systems: Not just SSA (Space Situational Awareness), but STO (Space Traffic Orchestration)—real-time, AI-assisted orbital routing and risk arbitration platforms (akin to Air Traffic Control + BGP for space).
- Verifiable Deconfliction Protocols: Investments in public–private collision adjudication frameworks, zero-knowledge proof systems for intent signaling.
2. Sensor Data Becomes Weaponized Infrastructure
Orbital sensors + AI + maneuverability yield persistent tactical ISR, even on mobile or deceptive targets. Without careful design, agility in space becomes indistinguishable from preemptive threat signaling.
Required Investments:
- Orbital Cybersecurity: Counter-AI and spoof-resilient telemetry pipelines; hardened encryption for edge-tasking satellites; anti-jamming + anti-deception stacks.
- Ethical Autonomy Middleware: Tools that manage when/where/how AI models engage in tasking, interpretation, or even target designation—especially for dual-use payloads.
3. Proliferated Platforms Result In Proliferated Debris
If maneuverability scales, so does risk. Debris isn’t just a byproduct—it’s a strategic liability.
Required Investments:
- Debris Insurance & Bonding Markets: Underwrite orbital behavior via performance-based orbital insurance and escrow-backed maneuver compliance.
- Tug & Disposal Services: Scale commercial tow-truck equivalents; integrate with propulsion platforms like Portal for lifecycle ops.
- Incentive-compatible orbital governance mechanisms, possibly tokenized or rate-based: think orbital cap-and-trade.
4. Space as AI Substrate
Real-world maneuvering and sensing produce training data at unprecedented fidelity. Orbital systems become sensorimotor simulators for autonomy.
Required Investments:
- Orbital Data Lakes: Companies that process and federate high-resolution orbital training sets across civil, defense, and academic domains.
- Sim-to-Orbit Pipelines: Infrastructure that bridges synthetic environments with real-time orbital feedback loops—crucial for reinforcement learning at scale.
5. Dual-Use Ambiguity Becomes Untenable
Every satellite with propulsion and sensing is now potentially a weapon. Strategic ambiguity evaporates.
Required Investments:
- Norm-building accelerators: Fund efforts like Open Lunar, Secure World Foundation, or bespoke ventures that establish technical guardrails for intent verification, digital demarcation, and post-hoc auditability.
- Transparency tooling: Telemetry beacons, orbital “black boxes,” and opt-in authentication tools that allow nation-states to verify behaviors without revealing sensitive capabilities.
6. Strategic Clarity and Escalation Risk
The death of ambiguity cuts both ways. When every maneuverable platform is interpreted as latent aggression, escalation ladders steepen. Recent U.S. missile defense initiatives—most visibly the “Golden Dome” architecture—have already drawn warnings from China’s PLA Daily and triggered quiet concern among EU allies. These systems, though defensive by design, collapse long-standing norms around first-strike ambiguity. In a domain where maneuverability, sensing, and pre-positioning converge, intent attribution becomes brittle. Deterrence theory traditionally relied on mutual vulnerability and signaling discipline; proliferated orbital agility could invert both.
Orbital systems designed for resilience or ISR can be interpreted as first-mover tools—especially under fog-of-war conditions or AI-accelerated inference loops. The same delta-V envelope that enables agile re-tasking also enables unpredictable posture shifts. Without deliberate architectures for verification, such mobility invites miscalculation. “Left of launch” used to mean early warning. In this future, it may mean preemption.
Required Investments:
- Intent-verifiable maneuver protocols: Secure telemetry architectures that distinguish repositioning for resilience from pre-positioning for strike.
- Machine-readable norms for orbital behavior: Embedded policy layers that make escalation thresholds computable, not just interpretable.
- Crisis-mode orbital signaling tools: Analogous to nuclear hotlines—pre-agreed orbital broadcast states that communicate benign intent during system activation or maneuvering.
7. Space Operations Become Biological in Complexity
As fleets grow and adapt dynamically, orbital operations will resemble organisms more than machines—dynamically allocating sensors, repositioning assets, and optimizing in context.
Required Investments:
- Orbital Operating Systems: High-level abstractions that manage fleets via goal declarations rather than micromanagement.
- Swarm coordination primitives: Investment in behavioral algorithms for orbital collectives, including graceful degradation, task partitioning, and intent-sharing.
Capital Allocation to Internalize New Externalities
Each of these could be complete investment thesis and sectors. Perhaps you want to do 1-3 investments from an “incubation” or “scout” fund, perhaps at university-level research, to get some early data points what works and what doesn’t. Because if you are right with Portal Space, all of these things will happen. And they will be billion-USD industries.
| Frontier Enabled by Portal | Externality | Required Investment |
|---|---|---|
| Agile orbital propulsion | Collision risk, kinetic ambiguity | Space traffic control + orbital norms |
| Persistent ISR | Target ambiguity, decision overload | Ethical AI tasking + sensor fusion frameworks |
| Dual-use proliferation | Policy opacity, adversarial miscalculation | Transparency tooling, black boxes, regulatory tech |
| High-fidelity training | Model misuse, strategic data leakage | Secure orbital data lakes + federated AI guardrails |
| Orbital lifecycle ops | Debris, asset burnout | Tugs, disposal services, orbital insurance |