Space at Davos 2027: Davos Space Day, the New Space Economy and Where the Capital Is Going

Space has entered the Davos week as a capital market rather than a theme. Davos Space Day is an invitation-only gathering for 150 guests on Monday 18 January 2027, co-founded by Alice Bromage and Nikolai Khlystov and delivered with Global Conversations.

It is a side event, not part of the World Economic Forum programme. That distinction is where the intelligence sits.

Davos Space Day 2027: what has actually been confirmed

Confirmed by the host: Monday 18 January 2027, 13:00–18:30, in Davos, alongside the Annual Meeting. Capacity is 150 guests. Access is by request and confirmation; every request is reviewed personally. The programme is curated as a single afternoon of dialogue rather than a multi-day conference.

Unconfirmed: the venue, the speaker list and the session titles. The host has published none of them. Anyone claiming a full agenda in October is working from assumption.

Davos Space Day Ltd is the organiser. Alice Bromage and Nikolai Khlystov are the co-founders; Khlystov was previously global lead for future of space technology at the World Economic Forum. Global Conversations leads event logistics and venue delivery in Davos, the same operator expanding its own programme at the Grandhotel Belvédère during the week.

For a first-time attendee, the practical consequence is simple: 150 seats against demand that the host itself expects to exceed supply. Requests made in October are not the same instrument as requests made in December.

The capital picture behind the arrival

The space sector did not arrive in Davos because the technology matured. It arrived because the money did. Four figures frame the week.

Signal Figure Source

Global space economy revenue, 2025 USD 550–600 billion OECD, Space Economy at a Glance 2026

OECD government civilian space budgets, 2025 USD 46.4 billion, up from USD 40.5 billion in 2022 OECD

Private investment in space, 2025 USD 11–13 billion, highest since 2021 OECD

Private capital raised in 2026 to date USD 15.7 billion, excluding SpaceX's June IPO Novaspace, World Space Business Week 2026

Space M&A expected in 2026 Around 60 deals Novaspace

Read together, the figures describe a sector funded by two purses at once: sovereign procurement and private capital. The second is what fills rooms in Davos. The first is what makes the second investable.

Novaspace's read on the 2026 market is that roughly three-quarters of space M&A transactions involve companies active in both space and terrestrial markets. The buyer's logic is not technological ambition. It is an end-to-end commercial proposition with a defence or connectivity contract behind it.

Five things the industry now argues about

The themes that will be tested in Davos rooms, drawn from the World Space Business Week 2026 programme in Paris:

• Launch certainty over launch price. Operators are pricing schedule risk, not just cost per kilogram, as launch availability for the late 2020s comes into question.
• Sovereignty as a procurement driver. Governments are converting security and resilience priorities into demand for sovereign connectivity, Earth observation and dual-use capability.
• Sovereign demand reviving GEO. Filings have risen even as GEO's share of connectivity revenue falls; emerging markets want national capacity, not shared capacity.
• Direct-to-device momentum against uncertain demand. Constellations are being announced faster than consumer demand is being evidenced.
• Earth observation shifting from imagery to decision-grade intelligence, with AI as the mechanism and trust as the constraint.

For an executive with one week in Davos, the useful question is not which theme is strongest. It is which theme has a buyer in the room.

Building the week around it

Space Day occupies one afternoon of a five-day meeting. Treat it as an anchor and build the rest of the diary backwards from Monday 13:00.

Window What is happening Access route

Sunday 17 January Private dinners and pre-week gatherings begin; several houses open before the Annual Meeting Invitation, host relationship

Monday 18 January, morning Programme launches at the official events calendar level Badge or registration, per event

Monday 18 January, 13:00–18:30 Davos Space Day, 150 guests Request and host confirmation

Monday 18 January, evening The week's densest dinner night; competing invitations will collide Prioritise before arrival

Tuesday 19 to Thursday 21 January House and pavilion programming, including the AI house circuit and country platforms Registration, application or invitation

Friday 22 January Programme wind-down; departures and bilateral meetings Badge or invitation

The Davos 2027 houses guide remains the working reference for venues. As of late October, 65 side events are publicly listed for 2027, of which 27 have host-confirmed dates. Most programmes publish between November and January. Confirmed dates include Axios House from 18 January, the Gamma Prime Investing Summit at the Central Sporthotel on 18 January, the Magic Mountain Lunch at Hotel Schatzalp on 19 January and the VNTR Investor Forum on 20 January.

Two additions matter for the space and deep-tech reader. UK House, the first official British pavilion at Davos, is confirmed for the Promenade, organised by Founders Forum Group with the Department for Business and Trade. The European Resilience Summit runs a full day on 20 January around digital sovereignty, the policy substrate for sovereign space capability.

Security, and why it shapes the space diary

The 2027 week inherits the tightened perimeter arrangements introduced for the 2026 meeting, and the geopolitics and security picture remains unresolved. The Forum has invited all G20 heads of state, and the participant list stays confidential until 10 January 2027.

For a space delegation, the practical read is that a defence-adjacent afternoon is the most schedule-fragile part of the week. Movement between venues is slower during a head-of-state visit, and closed sessions move or compress at short notice. Build one fallback per day.

Who should request a place

Space Day is designed for space sector leadership and the decision-makers adjacent to it: senior industry executives, investors, policymakers, and the organisations that build, fund or depend on space capability. It is not a general networking event and it is not a public stage.

Requests are made through the host's site, with enquiries to [email protected]. Attendance requires organiser confirmation; saving an event to a calendar does not reserve a place.

Judgement on whether to pursue it: if the objective is capital, the sector's 2026 numbers support the trip. If the objective is procurement, the same numbers say the buyer is a government, and governments are better met at the country pavilions than at a 150-seat afternoon.

FAQ

When is Davos Space Day 2027?

Monday 18 January 2027, 13:00–18:30, in Davos, alongside the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting.

Do I need a WEF badge to attend?

No. Davos Space Day runs its own invitation process, independent of WEF accreditation. Access requires confirmation from the organiser.

How large is the event?

150 guests. Capacity is fixed by the venue and requests are reviewed individually.

Is Davos Space Day part of the World Economic Forum programme?

No. It is an independent side event hosted by Davos Space Day Ltd, with logistics delivered by Global Conversations.

Is the 2027 programme published?

Not yet. The host has confirmed the date, duration and format; the agenda and speakers are to follow.

Conclusion

Space is now a Davos asset class, and the 2027 week gives it a dedicated afternoon for the first time. The intelligence value is in reading the sector's capital signals before the room convenes, since the two things that decide a space meeting, sovereign demand and private capital, are both quantifiable in advance.

The Davos Collective is independent and not affiliated with the World Economic Forum. Analysis here is drawn from host confirmations, OECD data and industry reporting.