WASHINGTON — Rising defense budgets and geopolitical shifts are creating new investment opportunities for Europe’s space industry, early-stage investors said at the Satellite Conference.

The investors pointed to parallels between Europe’s evolving space industry and how the sector has flourished in the United States, where investments ultimately led to major exits that have so far largely eluded the other side of the Atlantic.

“Europe is having a little bit of a ‘Back to the Future’ moment,” Alpine Space Ventures investment partner Bulent Altan said on a March 12 conference panel here, revisiting defense investments that could drive a commercial space boom.

“It was harder to find parallels maybe about a year or two ago, but now on the European investment side, you’re seeing defense spending go up,” said Altan, a former SpaceX executive who has invested in companies in the U.S. and Europe.

He was speaking after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled the ReArm Europe Plan last week, a proposed 800 billion euro ($872 billion) initiative to bolster defense and resilience as the U.S. reassesses its global security role.

Programs such as IRIS², Europe’s $10 billion-plus multi-orbit broadband initiative, also reflect a shift toward integrating commercial space into defense — a ‘dual-use’ strategy that has become a key part of the U.S. government’s approach to space.

“In the U.S., we look for duality on [company] revenue projections, both commercial and government — we didn’t use to look for that in Europe because it didn’t exist … That has changed completely,” Altan said.

“So our early bets have been there, looking for that quality, and it seems like that is going to pay off as Europe is trying to reinvent how it’s going to defend itself and its sovereign capability.”

Filip Kocian, an investor with Expansion Ventures, echoed this optimism, citing increased defense spending and a more holistic approach to procurement as key drivers of Europe’s space momentum. 

He also noted that stronger funding and strategic initiatives could help Europe attract more engineers and entrepreneurs.

However, Kocian also cautioned that Europe is still at least seven years away from seeing the kind of large-scale investment returns that have materialized in the U.S.