The Tema Space Innovators ETF, trading under the ticker NASA, reached $1 billion in assets under management in just 37 trading days. That makes it the second-fastest thematic ETF and one of the top five fastest active equity ETFs to hit that milestone out of more than 1,700 products.
Tema Space Innovators ETF, NASA
The fund launched on March 31 with $1 million in seed capital. It now sits at $1.27 billion AUM.
The ETF has gained 46% since inception, outpacing rivals UFO (+32%) and ARKX (+17%) over the same period. Only the Roundhill Space & Technology ETF (MARS) has done better, up 53% over the same stretch.
NASA’s big draw is simple: it’s the only space ETF with exposure to SpaceX.
SpaceX filed its S-1 on Wednesday ahead of a planned IPO next month, and that appears to have triggered the latest rush. The fund pulled in $375 million in a single day.
The SpaceX listing has become one of the most anticipated IPOs in years. For investors who want a piece of it before it hits the public market, NASA has been the only ETF option.
That dynamic has pushed NASA past longer-established rivals. UFO, which has been around longer, currently holds $972 million in AUM. ARKX sits at $944 million. Both have seen healthy inflows too — $456 million and $143 million respectively this year — but neither can match what NASA has pulled in.
The fund holds SpaceX through a Special Purpose Vehicle, or SPV. That structure is what makes the exposure possible, but it comes with a catch.
Here’s the irony: the more money flows into NASA because of SpaceX, the less SpaceX exposure investors actually get.
When large inflows hit an ETF, the manager has to deploy that cash quickly. With a private holding like SpaceX, you can’t just buy more stock on the open market. So new money ends up in public names, diluting the private position.
Last week, SpaceX made up 10.3% of the fund. Now it’s down to 4.6%.
SpaceX also hasn’t been a major driver of the fund’s performance — the gains have largely come from the publicly traded holdings. Yet the mere fact that SpaceX is in the portfolio at all has been enough to make NASA the dominant player in the space ETF category.
Tema President Steve Munroe said the fund was built to deliver “institutional-quality” access to the space economy, including pre-IPO exposure to SpaceX.
As of Wednesday, NASA had tripled its AUM in just one week.
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