Mo Islam
Welcome to the show.
Tina Ghataore
Hey, Mo, thanks for having me.
Mo Islam
You are, you’re a tough woman to get on the calendar. You’re, you’re busy. You’re very busy. But I know that’s because good things are good things are happening.
Tina Ghataore
Yes, it’s been a busy year. You’re catching me almost at my one year anniversary here at Aerospace
Mo Islam
wow, well congratulations on that. But maybe just to get started, tell us a little bit about yourself, like your career in the industry, you’re very well respected every single time, your name comes up, it’s always in the most positive light, so clearly you’ve been doing something right. So tell me a little bit about your path to Aerospace Lab.
Tina Ghataore
Oh, thank you. That’s very kind of you. Path to Aerospace Lab, let’s see. I’m about to date myself, but I don’t mind. I’ve been in the industry now, wow, started my career in 1995. it’s been, you know, next year, it’ll be a good three full decades, right? And, know, as aerospace engineer by education, I like to say a lot more smarter engineers in the room than I ever will be, and moved sort of my career from the baseline engineering into more business development, marketing, sales, strategy, and cut my teeth at the Boeing Company in the early part of my career. It gave me a great foundation on how to work across departments, matrix organizations. You know, learn core level of systems engineering as an aerospace engineer. So got to learn the basics and then just grew from there into different companies, large and small. And found my niche, which is trying to take products and services to market. Always had a job where the remit is international. And I like it’s kept me grounded in terms of having opinions and working across cultures. I love that. And it’s not just invented here in the United States.
I mean, I’ve spent my entire career working here in the United States, but there are smart people, new ideas, innovations happening globally. And I’ve been able to tap into that. Joining Aerospace Lab almost a year ago now has been a great decision for me and having a lot of fun, a lot of activity this past year. I came to Aerospace Lab from Mynaric, again, three years of great work building a great team, many of whom are still there building the largest backlog the company has seen or actually the largest backlog in laser comm products again, and being part of listing the company in the US on the NASDAQ. That was a lot of fun. Raising capital, maybe not a lot of fun, but it’s got to be done. And then prior to that, I spent three years almost at Al Yah Sat, living in Abu Dhabi, I’d like to say that was one of the best experiences I’ve had in my career living abroad and working there, trying to again build a mobility communication service business for Yassat. So really had a nice variety of roles, but again, go to market is where I excel and large and small companies alike. There’s been diversity in roles and locations that I get to fly to.
Mo Islam
What sold Aerospace Lab for you? Why did you leave Mynaric and end up joining the
Tina Ghataore
Well, when you have a brilliant founder and CEO in Benoit and he starts talking to you almost two years prior to you joining, you’re trying to sell him terminals, but he’s more interested in how you can work together. So I thought I would beat him down into buying some terminals for me. He beat me down to say, join my team. What attracted me is his vision, his drive, his ability to know what he’s good at and how he wants to bring a team that can compliment him. And, you know, that’s, that’s a great combination if you can find it. I’m not coming in as a founder. So, you know, we all have, we’ve all worked alongside founders that have some, kind of founder syndrome and they just need to recognize where they need help and this is where Benoit recognizes where he needs help. He had assembled a great team already. I saw what he had accomplished at Aerospace Lab. We’re six years old now. And so much has been accomplished even prior to me joining and recognizing that he needed my help in charting the course for the next few years. And we just had a good match up, personality, vision, drive, all of those things.
Mo Islam
So tell me a little bit more about the history of the company and a little bit about the vision that you’re mentioning.
Tina Ghataore
Yeah. Like I said, Benoit started the company six years ago. He’s had also an international career. He was out in the US at NASA Ames working in the early part of his career with the early start of the planet type, planet team. So he knows that team well. He’s worked in Switzerland and he wanted to really find a way to innovate faster. He built the company initially to put a group of in-orbit capability around Earth observation satellites. And the first satellite that Aerospace Lab built was a CubeSat and the components, et cetera. And he wanted to bring that fast-paced innovative philosophy that he had been accustomed to working here in the US into Europe. And he did, he continues to champion a team that does that. A different way of thinking, let’s go is kind of our big mantra at the company and having a vision of we can do things. We can innovate. We can vertically integrate to do that.
We have the expertise. have a nice blend of subject matter experts who are career people with a couple of decades worth of experience. And we marry that with new talent from new universities across the globe, Europe. We’ve got a great one in Belgium, just down the street from us, so to speak. So the vision is really about building at scale, building great product, innovating fast. And those are not just buzzwords for us. We’ve demonstrated that we can design, build payload and satellite platforms and then launch in less than 18 months. So product is ready by 12 months, delivered a SpaceX for integration. And, you know, there’s a lead time for things like that as well. So it’s demonstrated that. the vision is to continue to do this. As a small company, it’s not always easy to get access to supply chains and parts. You’re always at the back of the queue of someone else having the foresight into vertically integrating what we know how to do, having the foresight to do in orbit demonstrations, which we’ve done. We have eight satellites in orbit. So we are taking that risk away from the future customers who’s making my job easier. So I can now go in with my team and say, we have heritage. Yes, failures you learn from, but I bet on the side of heritage. Like, look, we flew, it’s working. I don’t need a headline of the opposite. It is inevitable. It will happen. We will learn from it. But in the early stages of a company, think, especially a space company, heritage speaks volumes when you’re trying to pursue new business.
Mo Islam
Yeah, all right. So you run Aerospace Lab North America. Tell me a little bit about how that fits into the broader structure of the business and why there was a need to have a division, so to speak, or a business segment focused on what I assume to be North American clients.
Tina Ghataore
Indeed. So we’re two hats of the company, I like to say. My first big important role is Chief Strategy and Revenue Officer for the global company. So we’re pursuing business at a global scale. Tapping into my experience, my prior experience before coming into Aerospace Lab in a market, the North American market, commercial and government, was something that Benoit and I discussed very early, and let’s face it, it’s a growing market. The opportunities exist. The barriers to entry are not significant. There are some, but so that was part of my decision-making process to joining Aerospace Lab is that we are prepared to invest here. So we’re a wholly owned subsidiary set up here in the United States. And basically we are pursuing both commercial and government markets. I have a team that I’ve assembled here in the US. We’re going to have a development and an assembly integration and test factory here in the US. And it’s not just a sales office. We’re going to be doing some real work tailored to the customer needs and requirements, right? The US government is a very specific customer and there’s flavors of US government as well. And so we are focused on the ones that can capitalize on significant R&D investments that have already been made into the products that we have at Aerospace Lab and now using that product line and leveraging it for really quick turnaround deployments of various size satellites.
Mo Islam
And all of this for the US business at least will be based in the West Coast, it sounds
Tina Ghataore
Indeed, yes, I’m on the West Coast. We haven’t announced that, but coming soon, we’ll be giving you a call on the location. It is a West Coast location, and it is very convenient for our customers to visit, but also convenient from a launch site standpoint. We’re used to going to Vandenberg, so we need access to
Mo Islam
Great, Yep, totally. Okay, so just taking a step back, I wanna talk a little bit about the market opportunity here for satellite platforms components at face value, right? There’s a lot of companies doing things like this, right? How do you think about how do you think about how Aerospace Lab fits into the ecosystem and how do you differentiate yourself?
Tina Ghataore
Very good question.
Mo Islam
And then sorry, there’s a few questions in there. There’s the market opportunity question and then there’s the Aerospace Lab specific question.
Tina Ghataore
So the good news is the market opportunity exists and it’s nicely spread across what I mentioned, you the government programs as well as commercial programs. Let me take that one step at a time. So on the commercial side, we are seeing new entrants that want to deploy specific types of missions. Take for example, our new customer Zona space systems. They’re looking at deploying a alt PNT position navigation and tracking systems. So they have a payload, but they’re looking for a satellite platform to marry that with. And we’re good at system integrating diverse payloads. So that’s something we excel at. We’ve done a variety of our own different payloads as well as customer payloads and our platform is versatile to accommodate that. So that activity is ongoing and that payload integration will happen in the United States in our new factory. The government is embracing the use of small satellites of various sizes in a very quick turnaround manner by the government, I’m talking about the space development agency, Space Systems Command. There are different parts of the government that have embraced the LEO orbit and sort of a diverse architecture in which they can deploy assets fast that are not, you know, billion dollars programs that have been delayed. They’re looking for commercial off the shelf. And they’re making it easier for people to, companies of our size to engage with them, the non-traditional defense contractors they call us, right?
So they’ve actually gone out of their way to create vehicles through which we can transact with the government and not be buried in a lot of paperwork as some government programs can be whether it’s Space Systems Command front door office that really helps facilitate things or the Space Development Agency, which has done a tremendous job over the last four plus years, at least as long as I’ve known them and their setup, where it’s a very predictable purchasing cycle. And that’s important for companies like us, right? When we’re looking at our pipelines, where we’re looking at how to spread our resources and investments, we look very careful at, what’s the market opportunity? Is it one-off or not? So coming to your market opportunity question, that cadence of that’s been communicated to the industry by the space development agency around the capabilities they need, the cadence in which they need them, the price they’re willing to pay for all of that and the schedule by which they need, that’s really important. And I can see that being followed up with some of the other agencies. I was just speaking at the NSSA and they wanted me to speak to how industry, government and capital comes together. was kind of nerve-racking, had to headline General Good Line, but you know, he reinforced much of what I had been saying, so that’s exciting. So that’s on the government side.
On the commercial side, as I mentioned, Zona and others are talking to about integrating their payloads at a price point that is very attractive. I like to say we provide value for the number we give you and there’s no really NRE involved there because there’s a sunk cost from an R&D standpoint. We don’t just do platforms. We also sell our avionics subsystems, which are all TRL9 in industry speak, technical in this level. They’ve flown, they’re doing great. So we can help other satellite platform builders who are procuring some of these components and can look at ours and say, okay, that’s flight proven, low risk. So those are the kinds of things that we’re doing, as well as help people out from a turn key satellite standpoint.
Mo Islam
A question that, so we’ve had a number of bus providers on the show and I’ve asked this question so I can’t not ask you this question, which is about SpaceX. How are you thinking, how are you guys thinking about SpaceX’s long-term bus desires, right? Or what they’re planning to do within low Earth orbit, obviously well beyond Starlink and you know what they’re doing with Starshield and beyond. Is that something that comes up in conversation internally or is that not something you guys are worried about?
Tina Ghataore
And I looked to SpaceX’s vertical integration as kind of a, I don’t say a benchmark, but it’s, they’re doing well. They’re doing something great. I’m not too worried that they’re just going to be a one company solution that fits all. To me, customers understand that diversity across suppliers is needed, a transparency across supply chains are needed as well. The operators, I think, that are worried more about SpaceX, you know, in terms of subscribers that they’re eating away at, etc. But we’re not because we’re looking at the ability to work with, we have a thing we say we are your partner from objective to orbit. We really live and breathe that. So we want to understand your mission objectives and we can package our products around that. So it’s not one bus fits all, although if you’ve designed it like we have, you can accommodate a series of different payloads. And because you’re vertically integrated, there’s some flexibility to change a few things. You just can’t achieve that at a company that, maybe a large company without a huge NRE price tag. SpaceX doesn’t worry me. Kuiper’s coming down the line. They’re focused on their mission to provide services. I think they’re going to make too much money, try to build some, you know, a couple of dozen or a couple of hundred satellites for somebody.
Mo Islam
Alright. Sure, I think that’s fair. So you mentioned this a little bit, satellite platform. I know there’s components that you build too. Walk me through sort of the current product set and like what that roadmap looks like. Is that sort of, is what you have and what you offer now what it’s gonna look like for the next few years or do you guys have other things in store?
Tina Ghataore
Well, focus, as you know, in a company our size, we’re now 350 people. We acquired Amos in Belgium, another great optical focused company on astronomy, telescopes and space-based optical capabilities. So it just strengthened our portfolio of technologies and products we can tap into. Our product portfolio is starting with, you know, LEO satellite platforms our workhorse, 150 kilogram satellites that are up there with three, four different variations of payloads that we’ve integrated is built on a set of avionics subsystems that we actually leverage from our way early days, right, when we started out. Now, when you have that core component in terms of baseline, subsistence that you’ve developed in-house, you can build a smaller structure and package things down. So we now have two customers, they’re announced. So Vyoma is a European customer that’s taking our, what we call our VersaVa satellite platform, Dash 50 kilograms, a smaller satellite. And then we’re going higher. So the way we look at it is mission payloads are growing in terms of power needs, swap needs. And what we try to do is we look at how to maximize that with our baseline subsystems. But we also look at maximizing the volume and mass of these rideshare missions. If you might be familiar with, know, SpaceX has a plate system that they use. So for example, our VSP 50 is perfectly maximizing the half plate volume mass kind of requirements so we can extend ours to fit all of those and the VSP50 is a quarter plate. What does that do for you, know, an operator out there and maximizes overall mass volume launch cost ratio. So having done three consecutive launches on SpaceX, Transporter 8, 9 and 10, we’ve gotten a lot of experience in how to integrate satellites on that launch vehicle.
We’ve also integrated on Vega and now we’re looking at, you know, the successes that Firefly is having or future launchers like Stoke or in Europe, there’s some new launch vehicles coming up. So the product line is very strategically tailored to maximize your dollar and then meet your ministry objectives in Leo. Will we grow to go higher? Yes. When it’s just a matter of the resources and the traction we have. But again, always thinking about it from what are these components that we can leverage that we’ve built. Our recent exciting news with the MDA contract. This is a big customer, a big prime that selected us for core component, core power component on scale 200 plus units to be built by us. You know, the Telesat system is flying in a very interesting orbit. don’t know if they’re public about it, so I won’t say too much. But there’s radiation environments to adhere to. And so our philosophy of taking costs and up qualifying them for radiation environments will remain with us as we look to larger satellites, higher power that can fly in different higher orbits.
Mo Islam
Okay. And how are you currently building the satellites right now? And maybe you can tell us a little bit of the don’t I’m going to probably butcher the name but Charleroi factory. Not even close. You know, I’m actually embarrassed now because I assume this is a term with French origin, of course, right? So I am on a 267 day streak on Duolingo for French. So the fact that I got that word so wrong is pretty embarrassing.
Tina Ghataore
Okay, so you know, you’ll be forgiven, but if I screw it up after eight years of studying French, living in France, working, that would look really bad for me, right? So I think we’ll cut you some slack, but I can’t mess it up because I need to practice some more, but the team are really helping, you know, most of the time where I always say to them to speak in French so I can start, you know, getting more comfortable. So yeah, we have an operating factory in Monet, which is south, I’m gonna get this wrong, south of Brussels, about 40 minutes, not too far. And that factory yields between 24 to 50 satellites, so 24 satellites annually on a single shift. So it’s equipped to deliver that and manned to deliver that, right? Charleroi is a new mega factory that we broke ground on in middle of May. We have a great supporter in the Walloon region of Belgium, you know how it’s split between the different regions. And we have, you know, plot of land that we have access to that we’re putting up a factory. And you know, we have numbers out there that say 500 satellites a year of particular size. Of course, if you’re going to go bigger, that will be less.
If you’re going to go smaller, it’s small. And we’re looking, we’ve designed it in a manner, in a very modular manner, where our capital expenditure that’s going to go into the factory is aligned with market needs. So we’re not, we are building it ahead of business that we’re foreseeing over but at the same time, we don’t need to equip for 500 satellites right away. We know what the long lead items are. We know some of the programs that are coming into play in Europe. You’ve heard of them. I have. There’s some constellation programs that Europe is looking at. But actually, even globally, there’s benefits to building in Europe, and there are benefits to building in the United States. And it really just depends, especially there are certain payloads, as I mentioned, in the United States. They can’t leave the country. They’re ITAR payloads. And so we have to have a footprint in the US. But there are certain benefits of doing a lot of international work in Belgium so you can capitalize on that activity. In the US, the factory will be sized to between 75 and 100 satellites. Again, it depends on the actual size we settle on based on the customer needs. But Chalerois is going to come online in 2026. In the meantime, we’re continuing to operate our factory in Monet.
Mo Islam
So once all of the factories in development are built and online, what will be the max capacity of what you guys can build on an annual basis?
Tina Ghataore
So if the high numbers, let’s say, you know, between six to 700 satellites, depending on an annual basis. know, the number could be 500 depending on the size. And if we want to double shift, if we want to automate certain things, automation, by the way, you know, I, a lot of people ask me this question about, it’s just going to be a whole bunch of robots. I’m like, CapEx. Do you actually need all those robots? you think about industrial design right from the beginning and how these satellites are coming together, think of a satellite in a flower shape with a bunch of panels. If you’re smart about how your panels are being manufactured and what units go on which panel, you don’t necessarily need to have 100% automation, but it does help. So we want to learn from factories that have either gone way too far on their automation, have sunk a lot of capex and try to create a real balance across both.
Mo Islam
No, that makes sense. I think I was actually chatting with another actual bus provider in the last couple of weeks. And he was mentioning to me about how, yeah, this vision of these robotic arms just putting pieces together and just working on it, that’s not how is, nor is it probably how it’s going to work anytime soon. It just doesn’t always cost sense, when you’re not, know, maybe it’s maybe one day when you guys are building thousands of satellite platforms.
Tina Ghataore
Yeah, I’d love to go via fly on the wall at the Starlink factory or the Kuiper factory, because there’s probably a lot of automation there. But, you know, we’re not at the point where if we kind of lose 20, 30 satellites, we’ll be like, we’ll just launch a few more. Like, we’re not there yet.
Mo Islam
Right. SpaceX has the benefit of, you know, if a bunch of Starlink satellites go down, then the constellation still is working, right? Constellation is not going to stop working. And, you know, they have sort of built in redundancy, you can’t, which then leads to some corner, I shouldn’t say cut corners, but you know, there’s some adjustments, some sort of things they can take more liberty on in the manufacturing process that others might not,
Tina Ghataore
They’re doing smart trades, right? There are things they can over-design, over-engineer, and nothing gets launched quickly, right? So they’re doing smart trades on how these are done. And this is a lesson that we could all learn, right? So we’re always looking at a minimum viable product to launch with. As I mentioned, heritage is important. So we’ve tested a lot of our components, our subsystems out. And then we’re confident when we’re talking to a customer that the risk is mitigated. The risk in space is always there, but the risk is mitigated through some of these things that you do. And then if you’re open in your communication with the customer about it, then that’s key. Some customers are willing to buy engineering models and then flight models. And some people want a structural model and others are to send you. I only have this much money. This is what I want to do. I don’t want this tested to the nth degree. I want you to do the testing that you would normally do. And we discuss the pros and cons and the risks, and then we move forward.
Mo Islam
So I want to talk a little bit more about the customer base and traction. And maybe you’re a go-to-market person, right? So maybe talk. as a company, you guys have made a considerable headway with European customers agencies. Talk to me a little bit about what your plan is in the US. What is your sort of go-to-market plan with commercial and government? And SDA specifically, I know that’s going to be large component of your focus and sort of target going
Tina Ghataore
So on the commercial side, I’ll start with, we’ve had quite a bit of interest on Earth observation companies that want to launch between 10, 20, 100, 200 small satellites. And they generally come to us with a payload. And they know that we have in the industry, they like to say a quiet bus, essentially just means really stable, right? So we’ve designed our bus to really perfect the need for the sensors. And now we’re making, now we can, once you’ve done that, the complexity around doing the availability for telecom payloads comes next, right? So we can do the whole spread of application types different payloads. So that’s the kind of customer that’s coming to us, whether they’re wanting very high resolution imagery at some sub 50 centimeter kind of level, or they’re looking at hyperspectral imagery, or they’re wanting to detect gases, that sort of thing. And obviously they’ve done their homework on the market, the end market there and they’re looking to people who can deploy things faster and heritage is important to them. Not just heritage, we’ve launched it, but we can show them how our vehicles are performing. So on the commercial side, there’s that group. And then there are some really large constellations being planned around direct to sell. So we’re monitoring that. Those are larger spacecraft.
They’re power hungry. So this is part of our strategy to build bigger satellites or I’d say accommodate, you know, four kilowatts, six kilowatts, know, 10 kilowatt power. You have to start with your building blocks of your power subsystem. You know, what’s your solar array going to look like? And then knowing how to package all of that to maximize your launch. On the government side, as I mentioned earlier, the Space Development Agency has created opportunities for non-traditional defense contractors. They’re looking to diversify their platform suppliers. They should, because right now, although they have diversity at the prime level, when you really come down and start looking at the platform level, and even scary, you start looking at some subsystems, know, off late there’s been news on many of these guys just using a single propulsion provider who’s forming, right? And so there’s the diversity in terms of, you know, the current prime is going to just one vendor. And I’ve spoken about this and I know that Dr.Tornier has spoken about this and they really do want this diversity May 31st, I believe it was. Yeah, it’s always a Friday. I don’t know if that was a Friday, but it always feels like it’s the last day, know, published an RFP on Halo, which specifically outlined the opportunity for non-traditional players in the bus community to be Primes. And it’s sort of I would say, a program to get us all involved. And those proposals were due last week, so we’re excited to be part of that pursuit. You know, it’s, I’m sure there’ll be, you know, dozens of applicants, but you have to stand out, I believe, on heritage and your partners and demonstrated ability to think out of the box, but do it fast as well.
Mo Islam
And how is the company funded so far? Privately funded, maybe talk a little bit about that. I know, well actually, I’ll let you answer. I tend to do that by the way sometimes. I tend to ask the question and then I tend to lead to the answer. I’ve actually realized it’s a, it’s a, it’s it’s.
Tina Ghataore
Well, I’d be happy for you to say, well, Tina, I read this or I heard this because then that keeps me very honest. I mean, I’m a private company, so I am at liberty to say a little bit more than if I was like in my previous company. I suddenly had to measure everything I said, right. And when I said it, we’re called a series B plus company. You know, we announced our series B raise a years back. We did an internal round for our growth in the US as well as funding Charleroi. But the great news is we’re revenue generating, right? So this is a cool start. Why did I join aerospace lab? Because they’re already revenue generating, right? And so we, crossed, the last number as I saw, we want to be cashflow positive 2026. So in terms of needing more money, maybe, but because we have these big contracts that have come in, there’s milestones associated, we have payments coming in from the prior contracts, repairing our bills on time, and we have money to grow, to hire team to invest in the right places. And when you do that with focus and with a clear strategy, then you can spread your resources carefully, right? So that’s kind of what I believe in is you can have a startup that’s gonna blow a million on a new brand, but we just do things efficiently. We had a brand refresh, but we paid nowhere near that number, right? You know, if I can do it on the economical way, we will do that. And this is the alignment that we have. So if we do need to raise more the end of the year or towards the end of the year, it will be for very specific needs for growth to fund bigger programs as well.
Mo Islam
Tell me a little bit about the long-term vision for the company. Like, where do you see the company in the next decade?
Tina Ghataore
I’m going to stop. So I know the 10 year business plan is always attractive to talk about, but I’ve my feet on the ground. So I’m going to talk about five years. can see that far. First of all, we have to get our product portfolio expanded to address what I believe are the market needs. We talked about the higher power needs of some of the telecom constellations that are coming up both on the government and on the commercial side. I don’t fill my pipeline up with just one single constellation. I like to see diversity across commercial and government. I like to see diversity across application types, but also diversity across geographics, right? So at the moment we’re very focused on a subset of the world where I know that we can affect immediate wins, whether it’s in Europe or whether it’s here in the United States, you’re seeing some of that come to fruition, right? We’re pursuing business in Asia, but in very specific countries. And we are doing that in a very systematic way and also in the Middle East, because we have a product market fit. So that’s very important, right? You go in with a product market fit. You expand your product portfolio. So then the next five years, it’s about infrastructure. We’re going to build our infrastructure at the product level, the technology to support those products and really build at scale and demonstrate that that can be done. Beyond that, I’m sure we’ll look at whether it’s new technologies that we have to bring in, new services that we need to adopt to grow overall product and service portfolio. And you know what you need? Sometimes if you really are going to adjacent markets or downstream or whatever, you’re gonna need new talent, right? It’s not the same talent that you employ to do your initial activities, right? So just like Benoit asked to have me come in to do some things specifically, I’m going to need to grow the talent pool if we try to hedge in any direction where my experience is not directly relevant.
Mo Islam
Right. Well, I’m certainly excited to see the future growth of the business and your plans, especially in North America. And I know for a fact that it’s in good hands. So, excited to see that. Now, Tina, I actually want to talk about some other things that more directly to your experience. I want to talk a little bit about the Middle East. Not a topic that we get to cover frequently on the show, but you you you’re there and you know, you and I had other conversations outside of this show about the Middle East. you know, not specific to Al Yah sat, but more just curious, like, like, what do you think is going on in space and the Middle East? And, you know, maybe I’ll start off with that generic question. But there’s another question behind it that I want to ask, which is like, I hear more and more space companies, especially the companies that are raising these larger funding rounds that are spending a lot more time on the Middle East for to tap into the capital in the Middle East. And maybe talk a little also about like, how should companies think about how Middle Eastern investors are thinking about the space industry? Would love to get your kind of perspective on that. I don’t know how much time you’ve spent on the investment side of that. I know you’ve mentioned, you you’ve spent some time raising capital before, or fundraising, obviously, for various ideas and initiatives. But maybe, yeah, maybe talk to me a little bit about
Tina Ghataore
So Middle East specifically, UAE, Saudi, Qatar, there are opportunities, immense opportunities there. I think that’s the next space race is happening out there. Geographically, they are located in an area that security is important and security comes not in just that obvious way, but also food security, climate security, physical security. So if you think about in those terms, they’re in a region that all of those things, the end need exists. A tremendous talent pool of people that are willing to spend the money to not only buy from outside, but now there’s a shift in let’s do things domestically. Let’s do them to bring in the knowledge. Writing a check is easy enough, but bringing that knowledge and transferring it and having leadership that is local leadership. That’s the phase that I believe the Middle East is in right now. Yes, prior to that, 70s, 80s, 90s, expat communities were helping with this activity. Now I look at the leadership that I interface with, local leadership, whether it’s Everrati in the UAE, et cetera. I have a great, to me, those are family. Once you spend three years working, working there with the respect they gave you. So that bond will remain with me. If you think you’re going to the Middle East because you’re just going to get a nice big fat check. Very astute, very smart people who have the same level and even more levels of due diligence that’s required to write you that check. Think of what is at stake and then go ask for that check. Right?
So the due diligence, I would say is on par if not more in terms of getting funded. If you’re smart, you’ll put some product development activities there as much as you can and tap into the resources. They’re geographically positioned so you can tap into a lot of outsourcing companies as well that have positioned themselves in the UAE. And now, you know, look at what’s happening with the Al Yah sat, Bayanat coming together, Space 42, know, Mubadala is a powerhouse and funding companies and diverse sectors you know, Saudi are doing so many things on that front. You tend not to hear too much, but if you’re in the right circles, you start to see where, you know, fund to funds is happening, where they’ve put money into different markets. So I know that there’s a lot of activity around the security aspects, whether it’s like I say, climate, food, physical security. so there are several programs that are being funded, but then that passion of exploration, the UAE space agency, the Saudi’s sending astronauts up, and that’s really fueling the public interest as well. I remember being in Abu Dhabi, when we were launching, you know, at Al Yah sat. And, you know, here in the US or maybe in Europe, it would have just been like, I was in a satellite launch coming up. had flags on streets, we it was like, you know, the malls knew, you know, people in the malls knew what was going to happen that early warning. So the spirit of the people and and the dream exploration is coming back from what it used to be the great astronomers from the Middle East and the mathematicians and now it’s, you know, it’s not all about oil anymore. It’s about exploration and space. And the young, the younger generation are really feeling that. And then the educated generations who went out to study have come back into the countries and are the leadership that we deal with today.
Mo Islam
No, I couldn’t agree more. Every time we speak to tons of companies, I’m at Payload, we get requests for advice and thoughts and ideas around fundraising, particularly because it has been a little bit more challenging the last couple of years. And the Middle East as a topic does come up. And I think there’s this perspective that, OK, well, if I have a great idea and I’m a cool team, smooth talker, I can go to the Middle East and get some dollars, right? And I think people learn the hard way very quickly that that’s not how it works. you know, there may be a lot of capital out there for investment, but that does not mean it’s blindly investing into things, especially if there is not a clear cut case for how it helps the region. I think that that’s obviously a significant part of it. If you can prove and you can showcase that a part of your business model is going to be reliant upon or will leverage the region, I think it just makes it a lot harder. It’s a lot harder bar.
Tina Ghataore
And it also depends how you, you know, if you’re a European company with product or you’re US company with product, you know, certain things can be transferred from an export trade standpoint easily and others cannot be. So those are the kinds of things one needs to consider. But there’s quite a few vehicles of early investments, accelerator type environments where I know that Abu Dhabi has made it attractive for founding teams to come and set up there. So it’s good to explore, but go in with a solid idea and don’t underestimate the due diligence that’s going to be required.
Mo Islam
Are there any, no, this isn’t a Middle East folk specific question, but are there any companies, startups out there that you’re watching very closely that you’re excited about that you’re, you you went from a public company, right, Mynarik to now a private company, albeit a bit smaller than Mynarik, but so obviously this, you do have some startup blood in you, there’s no question. I’m curious if there are other companies out there that you’ve been paying attention to or you think are interesting. To be clear, I’m not saying you’re gonna jump ship. just mean just like as an enthusiast in the industry.
Tina Ghataore
I’ve spent the last two decades advising various companies. I’m an Angel investor myself, right? So I do liberally give advice to people that come up to me and I tell them like, just take it for what it’s worth, right? But I’m a techie. The satellite industry is kind of my area and anything around immediately around that. So I’m watching companies that have the core fundamental pieces that are going to be required for future growth, whether it’s to build something faster, to get more compute power in, or to make things more secure, you know, to do things around AI, how that can be leveraged, then some downstream things. When it becomes a little too on the edge software, then that becomes a different community of people that I would sort of go to and say, what do you think about that, that company? But when it comes to, you know, the next hot company that’s doing propulsion or the next hot company that’s got, you know, cyber security, certificate certified equipment, I’m watching all those companies. But also the ones that sort of help you build requirements. Like there could be some great companies that we spend hours trying to figure out teams of people to try to write some requirements. There could be some companies that do that more efficiently. So design all the way through. I’m done with space tugs. I’m done. I don’t want to hear about that. But they’re needed. There’s just, was such a, you see, like, I don’t know if they all suddenly come out of the woodwork, but there’s so many, you know, there’s all these laundry companies, all these space tech companies, and then there’s this kind of a trend. So I just like to, you know, we need to explore more. So if I was putting my money behind something, I’d have at least a 10 year kind of outlook.
Mo Islam
Well, if you’re listening and you’re building a space company, it sounds like Tina’s pocketbook is open for business. So as a prominent Angel investor, as long as you’re not a space tug.
Tina Ghataore
Well, mean, can check what I need, but yeah, I the pocketbook’s not that lush yet. It will be, because I make a few more orders.
Mo Islam
There you go, there you go. Well, when you’re not focused on building satellite platforms and thinking about Angel investing, what do you spend your time doing? Give us a little bit of what do you do for fun?
Tina Ghataore
Or you mean when I’m not gonna get to my second million on some airlines membership program? I wanna get back to reading physical books. I just moved into my home, meaning last six months, we were building our home, so I’m now decorating it. Love that sort of thing, design, decoration kind of the different side of my brain that starts for work there. I do love to travel, but because I travel for work, I try to find new places, new cultures to visit. But I have certain goals this year, which is read more, get back to yoga, because it’s been a year, and start flying with my yoga mat again. Just really, you know, when you throw yourself into a new role, sometimes you disconnect from your friends at large. So just kind of start, you know, doing that. I don’t have any goals of running a marathon with my husband who’s always trying to rope me into one. That’s never happening. But, you know, I have an 18 year old who’s out of the house, an empty nester. It’s kind try to create a balance across work and life. Haven’t perfected that yet, Mo. Still working on it, you know?
Mo Islam
Yep. Well, well, it’s hard, I’ll tell you that much. you know, I’m, as I’m getting older, I’m realizing that there’s always a new challenge that you have to kind of figure out, right? So I totally get it on your point on the books. It’s interesting you say that. So I’m a I’m a I love I’m a big reader. And I actually was in the past, more of a fan of the physical book you know, exhibit A, but, you know, I’ve converted to this, right, which is an iPad. And I have so many more books I can fit into this. That being said, I recently was like, you know what, so I’m reading a book right now. Actually, I’ve talked about this to a number of people already. But I’m reading a book right now called Making of the Atomic Bomb. And it’s a story of the Manhattan Project, the history of the Manhattan Project, all the way from like the discovery. Are you reading it? Have you read it?
Tina Ghataore
I’m watching it, okay, I’m cheating because I’m watching the Netflix series that talks about this whole thing. you, gosh, I’m going to blank. There’s a series that talks about this. And I mean, if you can get through the first two episodes, you’ll be like, I was scared stiff. Like that stuff was not. Yes. I’m going to send you the link.
Mo Islam
I didn’t know there was a Netflix series.
okay. I’ll have to, I’ll have to, I’ll have to look it up.
Tina Ghataore
If I remember the name as well, should know because I’m, think, on episode four now. And that’s been down on my device. But send me the link to your book as well.
Mo Islam
wow, okay.
Yeah, well, so so so what I was saying was gonna say like, so I’ll definitely send you the link. It’s great, but highly recommend it. It’s a it’s big. It’s like 1,000 pages. It’s like it’s like it’s like maybe even bigger than that. And it’s thick. And I have been like, you know, every time I’m traveling, I’m like carrying it around with me. But I’m like, this is so impractical. It just like literally adds like five pounds to like my bag. Like, I’m sorry, I have to say I hate to say this, but I’m going back to the iPad. I tried. It’s just there are certain size books that you just, as much as I would love to have a physical copy, I just can’t anymore.
Tina Ghataore
But also, you know, I have the same iPad that you have over there, but gosh, I’m forever going, do I have the right charger for it? And then they swapped it out. My phone isn’t the same charger as my iPad and it’s just logistics. And can I fit it into my handbag, right? That becomes another challenge as well.
Mo Islam
Yeah, or the worst, you’re getting ready for, you know, going to the airport and you grab your iPad and you’re like, Oh, like, what’s the charge and it’s like 2% and I’m like, oh, no, that’s like very. Yeah, exactly.
Tina Ghataore
And then you don’t have the right wire, right? But Netflix, you know, that’s a series that I’m going through. And it’s, you know, really, wow, that just happened in this era. wow, you know, those kinds of things. But also in the physical book, my to-do list is biographies, right? There are some people that I’ve admired. And I want to read about their stories and see how they did what they did. So that’s something that aiming to, you know, I’ve bought a few and they’re sitting on my very nice new shelving system and my library, you know, wows, but I need to pull it out and start opening it and carrying a hardback is tough, right? Carry on. Yeah.
Mo Islam
Yeah. Well, you have to now you have to tell us what biographies these are. At least give us one.
Tina Ghataore
Indra Nooyi. So I got her biography and I just, yeah, I wanted to look at that and read through that. There’s some powerful women that I wanted to read about and see how they went through certain things that I trip around on. But hey, we’ve just started something new. I think in the Payload newsletter, we should be doing a book club too.
Mo Islam
was just gonna say maybe we should do a book club. I’m literally thinking you’re like, hey, maybe I’ll pass. I’ll pass that on to the editorial team. Maybe we should do it. Maybe there should be like a, you know, Payload book club. I think that’s a great idea. Actually. Yep. Yep.
Tina Ghataore
Yeah. Recommended books, you know, and why. It’s not just recommended books, it’s recommended books and why. I know the team at Via Satellite always do this to me, like, what’s in your playlist? What are you listening to, Tina? Or what’s the latest movie you’ve been watching? So I think Payload, we should have a section in the payload newsletter that talks about books Mo is reading, you know, or the next first.
Mo Islam
Yeah.
There you go, there you go, there you go. Tina, always with the good ideas. Thanks so much for being on the show. I appreciate it.
Tina Ghataore
It is my pleasure. Thank you for having me. I know it took us some time, but it’s been great. Thanks
Mo Islam
As always, you’re always welcome back. excited to see how things go and here’s to some more great updates in the future.
Tina Ghataore
See you then.
Mo Islam
Okay.
