Experience · Space & Frontier Manufacturing

Where the orbit, the factory floor, and the industrial base get rebuilt.

Nextwave X Partners has been investing behind the platform companies rebuilding launch, in-space services, and the industrial base underneath — from Stoke Space and Relativity to Slingshot Aerospace to First Resonance and ICON. We were early to frontier manufacturing before it had a category.

Why now

The industrial base is being rebuilt in software.

A generation of manufacturers is trading paper travelers and disconnected MES for software-defined production. The winners will be the ones underneath the primes and the new-space entrants alike.

Portfolio across the base→

Space is turning into a services business.

Launch is finally table stakes. The next decade is about awareness, resilience, imagery, and orbit-native applications — where we hold multiple platform bets.

Physical AI needs a manufacturing partner.

Every robotics and defense-tech company we back eventually hits the same wall: production. First Resonance is where the industry re-tools itself for it.

Our position

Two vehicles. Long-horizon exposure to launch, orbit, and the factory floor.

Prior fund · Frontier industrials

Industrious Ventures

The fund where much of our space and industrials portfolio was built. Early positions in Relativity, Stoke, Slingshot, ICON, First Resonance — before frontier manufacturing was a category.

Portfolio history→

NXP

Active · Frontier follow-ons

NXP direct + SMAs

Continued positions and follow-on capacity across the frontier manufacturing and space portfolio, including newer entries at the physical-AI/industrial boundary.

Active positions→

FoF

Fund-of-funds positions

Manna Tree, Bullpen, and platform GPs.

LP positions across managers who anchor the deep-tech and industrial-tech categories alongside our direct portfolio.

See all positions→

Track record

Portfolio across launch, orbit, and the industrial base.

Positions across Relativity Space, Stoke Space, Slingshot Aerospace, ICON, First Resonance, Hydrosat, NuView, Solestial, Volta Space, DatumSource, Polymath Robotics, and Beep. Multiple exits already booked; the platform positions still compounding.

Anchor story · Fund launch

Relativity Space — early platform position.

Backed the 3D-printed rocket thesis before reusability was consensus. The company is now a top-tier launch platform with billions raised behind it.

Anchor story · Compounder

Stoke Space — the fully reusable second stage.

Positioned early in the company rebuilding the hardest part of the launch stack. The next-generation reusable vehicle nobody else has cracked.

Anchor story · Category leader

Slingshot Aerospace — space domain awareness.

Space situational awareness for governments and commercial operators alike. The default layer as orbit gets crowded and adversarial.

See the full space & frontier portfolio→

Inside the operator

Where our team has run industrial and defense innovation programs.

Every position above sits on top of years running programs inside the operators, primes, and industrial holdcos that buy this technology.

Defense innovation
program

Industrial platform
strategy

Enterprise engagement
industrial clients

National industrial
competitiveness

Active & next

What we’re building right now.

Live intelligence

Frontier industrials tracker.

The active follow-on pipeline across the frontier manufacturing and industrial-AI portfolio — where the next platform positions get taken.

See the portfolio→

Field notes

Physical AI x industrial base.

Where robotics, autonomy, and rebuilt manufacturing collide. The thesis feeding the next wave of positions.

Read on Insights→

Engage

Get in on the frontier industrial base.

Corporate LP positions for enterprises with industrial, defense, or aerospace exposure who want strategic access to the platform layer. Direct co-investment on select follow-ons. Program design for corporate innovation groups building industrial-tech venture programs. Start the conversation→