When you think of the United States space industry, markets like Southern California, Colorado and Texas probably jump to mind. That's because those are the homes of large private aerospace companies like SpaceX and Firefly, or government facilities like NASA's Johnson Space Center and the U.S. Space Command.
But according to Merridith Ingram, those states are "looking over their shoulder" at New Mexico.
"Even though we are probably the smallest of the U.S. markets, if Denver is looking over their shoulder at what we're doing then we're definitely making progress and keeping them on their toes," Ingram told Albuquerque Business First.
Ingram and Meredith Schweitzer make up The Riotmind Agency, a recently rebranded space and deep tech-focused marketing and public relations firm dual-based in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Formed in New York in 2012, the firm — formerly known as 66+Co — moved to New Mexico in 2015.
While the agency initially focused on deep technology companies and organizations only, its shift to New Mexico quickly turned Riotmind onto the space sector. That was largely because, Ingram said, the firm started working with the Hyperspace Challenge as one of its first clients in the state.
Hyperspace Challenge is a U.S. Space Force business accelerator for space startups launched by the Air Force Research Laboratory, in partnership with CNM Ingenuity — an entrepreneurship nonprofit associated with Central New Mexico Community College. It started in 2018 and runs an annual program, bringing startups to Albuquerque to work with government agencies.
"Because we were working with Hyperspace Challenge, and they were this incredible pipeline for these groundbreaking space startups, we started meeting people really quickly," Ingram said. "It really accelerated from there."
Now, the firm works with a dozen clients across the aerospace and deep tech sectors, including startups, nonprofits and government agencies. Another six are "in the pipeline," Ingram said.
Working with more clients in the space sector has led to significant revenue growth for Riotmind — a 450% revenue increase from space industry clients and a nearly 900% increase from space and deep tech clients combined, the firm claims. Ingram said it could reach a revenue in the six-figure range in early 2024.
While only a few of the agency's dozen clients are based in New Mexico, including the Hyperspace Challenge and the Association of Commercial Space Professionals, Ingram and Schweitzer said a large part of their work as a New Mexico-based agency includes being a "champion" for the state.
That could look like pitching New Mexico as a relocation or expansion location for growing aerospace companies. For instance, when Space Forge, a Riotmind client based in the United Kingdom, was in the process of considering where to establish an office in the U.S., the firm "very strongly pitched New Mexico," Ingram said.
Space Forge did tour New Mexico but ultimately picked a spot on the East Coast to be closer to Northrop Grumman, based in Falls Church, Virginia, which was a potential business partner at the time.
But besides pitching the Land of Enchantment as a business location, Ingram said Riotmind also recommends startups it works with participate in accelerator and space industry programs — many of which are based in New Mexico. Hyperspace Challenge and NewSpace Nexus' Ignitor program, as well as the space-focused incubator Q Station that runs an annual space tech cohort, are a few examples.
And because New Mexico — Albuquerque, specifically — is a relatively smaller market compared to space hotbeds like Los Angeles, Houston or Colorado Springs, space startups can often get more direct, hands-on community support, Ingram added.
"It champions people and companies in a way that I don't know if you would get if you went to [Los Angeles] or San Francisco or even Denver," she said about New Mexico's space sector. "If you're a startup that needs to get traction in the industry, you almost can't do better than a community like the New Mexico community."
Many of those companies The Riotmind Agency works with are focused on "facts and figures," Schweitzer, the firm's co-founder, told Business First. That means much of its work is helping companies move above those facts and figures into "bigger corporative narrative and global storytelling."
"There are a lot of companies that are doing it right, and there are a lot of companies — because they're founded by engineers and technology enthusiasts — that do need that support of how do you make this a story that really resonates with the important audiences that you need to reach," Schweitzer said.
That's a need of New Mexico more broadly, as well, Ingram added. Because New Mexico's space sector is still in a "development phase," how the state positions itself in comparison to more established space markets will be important going forward, she said — especially as the New Mexico Space Valley Coalition, which is a group of educational institutions, nonprofits and government agencies across the state, bids for a large chunk of federal dollars.
"I know that when we were going through the process of introducing Space Forge to New Mexico, there were definite areas for improving the way that we're positioning our strengths," Ingram said. "Like any growing market … we need to really be thinking about the positioning and the marketing of the market as we advance this concept of Space Valley."
