The View from the Office.

I met up with Aaron Burnett, the CEO of Mach33, an investment and research firm that focuses on space. We were introduced by Brad Levy from Symphony.

Mach33 is based near the space center at Cape Canaveral near. The fund is $70 million. The firm started publishing research in June including an open source SpaceX model produced in collaboration with Ark Invest.

For someone who doesn’t focus a lot on space, talking to Aaron is eyeopening. He makes the case that Mars could be a major manufacturing source for raw materials in the next 25 years, which makes sense if you are thinking of building infrastructure in space. 

Everything about the space program is improbable, outsized and fantastic. He pointed out that Space-X’s South Texas Factory city, Starbase, manufactures 10 rockets a year, but has a roadmap to scale up to 1,000 a year. 

The industry is so new and growing so quickly that investors are starved for information in general and professional research in particular. That’s where Mach33 is trying to fill a gap, producing quality analysis, especially of the smaller, private companies seeking funding. 

Aaron co-founded the company with J. Brant Arseneau, who spent 30 years in technology, finance, and capital markets working on electronic trading systems, renewable energy derivatives, and investment platforms tailored for space and tech startups.

Mach33 aspires to be the asset manager of choice for deep tech/space projects. So far, the firm has focused its investments on smaller startups with the emphasis on two themes: the extension of humans in space and the intelligent mechanization of labor enabling space.

You can connect with Aaron via LinkedIn or DM me for a warm intro.