Dylan Taylor is the chairman and CEO of Voyager Space, a multinational space

conglomerate he founded in Denver back in 2019. Voyager has grown quickly in large

part through seven acquisitions, two of which were local startups.

And the company's Star Lab is currently being built to replace the aging international space station.

But Voyager is also a key example of how and why the aerospace industry is contributing to the region's economic boom,

and a reason Denver and Boulder are the subject of CMBC's new cities of success.

Why base the company here?

So when we were creating Voyager and thinking through the best growth markets where we could

have access to talent, Denver really rose to the top.

Over the past two decades, aerospace grew%, more than any other emerging industry in Metro Denver and Boulder over that period.

A hundred and ninety-one aerospace companies from the biggest defense primes to the youngest startups

support 29,000 jobs in the region.

Everyone from Lockheed Martin to Northrop Grumman

to Ball Aerospace, Sierra Space, U.S.A.

And of course, Voyager call it home.

But now that we have scale, we're

Circa 700 employees now and, you know, quite a bit of revenue

looking to enter the public markets at some point.

Taylor is also a prolific space investor, having back to 50 startups,

and an astronaut himself after a flight on Blue Origin's new shepherd.

On this episode, a trip to the Mile High City to discuss what

makes Denver so conducive to aerospace and how one entrepreneur is

...