Should investors purchase shares now that Seraphim has achieved lift-off?

According to Kaylie Pferten, this venture trust has evolved from a speculative investment to a more developed growth-stage holding

The top-performing investment trust in 2025 was Seraphim Space Investment Trust (LSE: SSIT), which has increased by 10% this year. For a business that was having trouble garnering much attention until about six months ago, this is an incredible turnaround.

One of the few investment platforms that gives private investors access to early-stage space companies is Seraphim. Governments control a large portion of the space market, which is valued at about £600 billion per year. Global defense contractors like Lockheed Martin are well-established, but there aren't many pure-play public and private companies.

The total value of pure-play public and private companies is approximately £160 billion, excluding SpaceX, which aims for an IPO of £1.5 trillion. That's not a huge amount for a market that, according to a McKinsey report, is predicted to triple in value to £1.8 trillion by 2035the bull case suggests it could be worth £2.3 trillion.

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Start your trial by visiting Seraphim, a space technology-focused venture capital firm of the same name. The 342 million trust is small by international standards, but investors have recently realized how unique it is. This type of investment is well suited to the investment trust structure because it offers a permanent pool of capital, allowing the manager to concentrate on identifying the best investments while investors have liquidity and don't have to lock up big sums of money for long stretches of time.

Investors ought to reconsider Seraphim.

After an oversubscribed initial public offering (IPO) in 2021, the trust was trading at a discount to net asset value (NAV) of more than 70% by the middle of 2023. Nevertheless, this has steadily decreased before switching to a premium for the majority of this year. This is a reflection of the trust's own portfolio companies' success as well as the excitement surrounding the SpaceX IPO (a stock that it does not own).

Its largest holding, the satellite company ICEYE, saw a 25 percent increase last year, contributing to the portfolio's 20 percent return. Germany's armed forces will receive space-based reconnaissance data from ICEYE, a top producer and operator of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites.

Seraphim owns slightly more than 5% of ICEYE, which is currently worth £3 billion. This year, the company hopes to generate more than £1 billion in revenue, up from £250 million the previous year. In less than a year, Seraphim's holding might be worth over £500 million if the valuation increases at anything close to the same rate. SpaceX is aiming for an IPO at 100 times sales as a bull-case comparison. Seraphim's holding could be worth billions if ICEYE is able to reach a valuation even close to this level, propelling the trust into the FTSE 100.

Last year, ICEYE attracted the most attention, but communications platform All produced Seraphim's biggest percentage gain. Space, which almost doubled its worth. Every one. In order to create navigation that functions when GPS is jammed, Space has announced a partnership with Aalyria, a Google space communications spin-out, and obtained funding from the European Space Agency's Navigation Innovation and Support Programme. Hawkeye 360, a geolocation company, also did well, seeing a 65 percent increase in value following the launch of its fifth satellite cluster and the completion of a £150 million funding round.

Seraphim has, quite rightly, been perceived for the majority of its existence as a high-risk vehicle with little chance of future expansion. However, the portfolio's key holdings appear to have matured to the point where much of the initial risk associated with early-stage start-ups has been eliminated, according to developments throughout the portfolio last year. Investors may want to reconsider the trust if they previously ignored it. The portfolio is just about ready to launch.