Infostellar, a space communications infrastructure startup founded in Tokyo in 2016, has just closed its Series A financing round with US$7.3million, led by Airbus Ventures.
The firm also received funds from new investors WERU Investment, D4V and Sony Innovation Fund, along with existing investors FreakOut Holdings and 500 Startups Japan.
The firm sought funding for its flagship product StellarStation, a cloud-based software platform with a hardware unit, which connects satellite operators with antenna owners. With StellarStation, users can share their antenna’s idle time and receive cash or credits. Infostellar will conduct a closed beta launch for the product in October 2017.
Along with the funds, Airbus Ventures Japan’s Managing Investment Partner, Dr Lewis Pinault, will now sit on the Infostellar board.
He said, “Infostellar dramatically shifts the [current] model – they can bring many hundreds of antennas around the globe to the service of thousands of satellites”.
The investment also marks Airbus Ventures’ first foray into the Japanese space startup scene.
Said Thomas d’Halluin, CEO of Airbus Ventures, “At Airbus Ventures we aim to facilitate exactly these kinds of dramatic, widely enabling shifts in the futurescape of aerospace. We’re particularly pleased to lead this important round of investment, our first in Japan”.
Dr. Tadashi Takiguchi, president and CEO of WERU Investment commented, “We understood that the development of key infrastructures by commercial entities is crucial during the current phase of the rapidly growing space industry. With this background, it did not take long for us to decide to support Infostellar and their goal of developing a communications infrastructure for small satellites. We are confident that Infostellar will make a significant contribution to the future development of the space industry.”
Other than StellarStation, Infostellar is also working on Makesat, an e-commerce platform connecting the Japanese smallsat industry with global customers.
