By Nick David, Editorial Lead, SatNews
Fifty times EBITDA, in a corner of defense that used to trade at six to eight.
That’s the multiple Karl Schmidt, managing director at investment bank KippsDeSanto & Co., said his firm recently got for an exotic-munitions company. He shared it Tuesday at Silicon Valley Space Week, on the Satellite Innovation panel “After SPCX: The Public Market’s Verdict on Space,” named for the Nasdaq ticker SpaceX has carried since its June IPO and moderated by Alexis Sáinz, a partner at Hogan Lovells. The number goes a long way toward explaining what’s driving space valuations right now.
“The whole munitions kinetic piece of M&A was always six, seven, eight times EBITDA, and a very small portion of folks that were interested in buying and investing,” Schmidt said. “That’s flipped over. We just sold a business for 50 times that was on the exotic munitions side.”
Older technology is getting a premium, too. “On Cold War munitions, we just sold a business for 30 times, based on scarcity value,” he said. He did not name either company.
Drones run on orbit
Schmidt tied the munitions boom straight back to space. Drones, one-way-effect weapons, and counter-drone systems all depend on space for connectivity and positioning, he said, “where space is needed for the infrastructure piece of supporting that.” He called it a fundamental change in how wars are fought: drones on land, at sea, and in the air, all needing assured connectivity and assured positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT).
Mike Collett, managing partner at Promus Ventures, said that defense premium now sits inside private space prices. “The multiple increase within the defense side, which space has participated enormously in, is a massive reason for all of the very high valuations we’re seeing on the private side today,” he said.
Collett called it “unfathomable” how companies with so much government revenue are now valued. He credited Palantir and Anduril with showing that government business can carry tech-style recurring revenue. “The best customers for space these days are sovereigns and governments,” he said.
Thirty space deals in a decade
KippsDeSanto works mostly on the sell side of the middle market, on deals with enterprise values of roughly $50 million to $600 million. Schmidt said the firm has done about 30 space or space-related deals in the last decade: around three a year, and about 10% of its deal volume.
Europe is part of the buyer pool. About a third of KippsDeSanto’s buyer groups now include large European acquirers, Schmidt said, as demand for sovereign space and defense capability outruns what European companies can supply.
Collett put the math simply: a public company’s value climbs when its earnings rise or its multiple does. “When you get both of them, good things happen,” he said.
KippsDeSanto & Co. is a sponsor of Silicon Valley Space Week, which SatNews produces.
About the Author
A storyteller at heart, Nick David covers space policy, satellite markets, defense, and the technologies reshaping how humanity operates beyond Earth. With a background in creative direction, brand strategy, and editorial storytelling, he brings a modern lens to complex subjects and a relentless curiosity about what comes next.
