“Space: the final frontier.”

That quote is seared into the memories of those of us who grew up with Star Trek.

In real life, we’ve seen the amount of money invested in space companies in the private sector balloon to $10 billion in 2021.

We’ve even seen equity crowdfunding platforms emerge that are focused entirely on investment into this “final frontier.”

As listed on its website, Spaced Ventures aims to make the space industry “accessible to companies and investors of all sizes.”

And in a move that’s made waves throughout the equity crowdfunding world, Spaced Ventures has its eyes on ditching the “final” moniker to usher us into a brand-spanking-new frontier for the investment world.

When it comes to private space companies, there are none with more attention than SpaceX, Elon Musk’s interstellar venture. Currently with a valuation of $127 billion, this startup launched 39 rockets in the first eight months of the year.

As a sign of the trend toward the privatization of space travel, SpaceX and NASA agreed on a new contract worth nearly $5 billion spanning 14 launch missions.

All of this is to say that SpaceX is leading the charge into that aforementioned final frontier.

However, the ability to secure a stake in this private company’s ascent has been restricted to a short list of 75 investors. This is something Spaced Ventures is actively trying to remedy…

With a target of $25 million, Spaced Ventures petition for SpaceX to raise capital on the crowdfunding platform currently sits north of $38 million. That’s $38 million pledged from prospective investors seeking to secure a small slice of SpaceX.

“The petition-to-raise feature is a tool that allows us to aggregate large pools of investor interest into a specific company. Those companies are often large, private, and they don’t really think they need the public’s money,” Spaced Ventures founder Aaron Burnett said. “This is a way for us to show that there’s so much interest, and this is a great way for them to democratize access to space and open up an investment opportunity to you.”

At a certain point, Spaced Ventures will approach SpaceX with the results from its petition as a means of attempting to convince the startup to open up investment to the public. In the event SpaceX agrees, those who pledged to the petition first would be front of line to secure a stake in the startup.

Equity crowdfunding continues to up its share of the investment landscape, as the $113.5 billion invested in 2021 marked a more-than-1,000% increase from 2020.

Should SpaceX accept the petition, it would mark the dawn of a new day in the equity crowdfunding world, further cementing its legitimacy. The ability for these platforms to essentially create investment opportunities by showing the latent demand opens new doors left and right.

“If exciting, privately held tech companies in frontier markets, such as SpaceX, were to accept retail and accredited investors in their growth stages, this would signal a massive and symbolic change in investment for private securities,” Rialto Markets CEO and co-founder Shari Noonan told Grit Daily.

These types of movements only remind us that there is still a lot to come from the equity crowdfunding landscape, and we’re only just scratching the surface of its full potential.

“Shoot for the moon” has never rang truer.