Israeli nanosatellite developer NSLComm has closed a Series B financing round of $6.25 million led by Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), Liberty, GF Hawk, OurCrowd and El Al's Cockpit.
NSLComm plans to use the investment to launch its first satellite into space in November from India and also to develop and manufacture two new nanosatellites for future launches. The company also plans hiring three or four more people in the fields of business development and communications.
NSLComm has developed nanosatellites capable of transmitting data at 1 gigabyte per second, over 100 times faster than the current technology available on the market.
Based in Airport City where it has 19 employees, the company was founded in 2015 by CEO Dr. Raz Itzhaki-Tamir, chief engineer Daniel Rockberger and CTO Danny Spirtus.
Itzhaki-Tamir told "Globes," "All of us have Internet at home and we receive a speed of 100 megabyte per second. We are used to the fact that every person at every moment in every place can send mails, make whatsapp calls and see clips on YouTube. These needs are taken for granted in industrialized cities in the west. But there are 3-4 billion people worldwide that are not connected and communications should be a basic right for everybody. All of civilization developed around channels of communication."
He added, "We successfully convinced investors that this has economic potential. In Africa today every customer pays a certain sum because communications consumers must repay the costs of the satellites that they use. If the satellite were 10 times or 50 times cheaper, then I only need lower the price 4 times for the consumer to profit and for me to profit.
Itzhaki-Tamir said that in 2017, the company had revenue of around $1 million. "But we are just starting out because only this year will we launch our first satellite.
At present NSLComm sells its engineering and planning knowhow to other companies.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 8, 2018
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2018