It seems space is starting to attract private investors who actually believe money can be made out there other than with comm satellites and earth observation like meteosats.

There are now two companies who claim their business model will be mining asteroids or even actually building stuff out there.

Deep Space Industries vs. Planetary Resources: Is outer-space asteroid mining the new gold rush?



Here a link to an articlea bout the newest competitor in this field. They claim they want to bring asteroids near earth, mine them and make stuff using asteroid material and a 3D-printer that can make complex structures using nickel, which is a common ingredient of nickel-iron asateroids.

But probably the first thing to produce in space would be water. That would be helpful for Astronauts living out there and for making oxygen and rocket fuel - LH (liquid hydrogen) and LOX (liquid oxygen).

The first company in that field is Planetary Resources.