Two of the industries most historically owned by the government are now venture capital targets—money and spaceships. According to Mattermark data analyzed by Tomasz Tunguz of the venture capital firm Redpoint, bitcoin and space travel were two of the four fastest-growing areas for startup investment in the past three years.
The seven fastest-growing investment areas have seen funding levels double every year on average since 2012, according to this data.
However for some of these, it’s partially a result of the level of investment in those areas. Bitcoin-related startups received just 0.18% of all startup funding in the last 12 months, and space travel just less than 1%. Mathematically, it’s “easier” to grow fast when investment is low.
Looking at the list this way, it’s easy to see that dollar-for-dollar, hospitality related startups—like Airbnb $ABNB—and transportation startups—like Uber $UBER—have collected an outsized share of investment, while also collecting huge sums.
Space travel is shown in this data to have captured a similar amount of investment as food and beverage startups such as Blue Bottle Coffee, and Blue Apron. Bitcoin startups have received substantially more than drone startups, but substantially less than those involved with photo sharing.
