Transcelestial proves an ambitious idea can get support in Singapore, having received US$1.83 million in seed funding

Part of our job at e27 involves meeting a lot of companies, and sometimes it can feel like we are remixing the same song.

Then, a company like Transcelestial comes along to remind us that being jaded helps nobody.

Transcelestial is a Singaporean company that wants to provide commercial-grade internet speed to the whole world. The startup wants leverage lasers and nano-satellites to build a Space Laser Network that would greatly improve internet connections to even the most remote of areas.

Currently, our internet is moved around via transcontinental high bandwidth undersea cables, which are extremely expensive. A Google-built cable between the US and Japan in 2016 cost about US$300 million to complete.

“We started Transcelestial because we saw an exciting future for humanity in the next 100 years but no action plan to build a scalable, underlying infrastructure needed, either on the planet or in deep space, to support that,” said Rohit Jha, the CEO and co-founder of Transcelestial.

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He added that as internet technology continues to improve, we need to figure out an infrastructure shift that will support the technology over the next century.

For Trancelestial, this means looking skywards and leveraging satellites.

Funding an unknown

One of the common refrains in Singapore is that investors are stuck on the tried-and-true leading to risk-averse decision making. Transcelestial is proving that truism wrong.

The company raised S$2.5 million (US$1.83 million) back in December 2017 and just revealed the information today.

The deal was led by Wavemaker Partners in partnership with SEEDS Capital. Airtree Ventures also participated in the round.

The angel investors involved in this deal are impressive. They are as follows:

• Michael Seibel — Y Combinator CEO

• Jonathan Schiff — A Partner at WI Harper Group

• Charlie Songhurst — The Former head of Corporate Partnerships at Microsoft

• Josh Manchester — a General Partner at Champion Hill Labs

The company is backed by Entrepreneur First, SGInnovate, and Sparklabs Global Ventures.

That support group is about as good as it gets for a seed-funded company, implying that futuristic companies in Singapore can find investment.

The money was used to build a small office in Chinatown that was transformed into a laser communication lab.

Also Read: Do Chinese companies understand Southeast Asia’s tech ecosystem well enough?

Currently, the company is testing a terrestrial version of the technology that it hopes it can sell to corporates before working towards its grander ambitions. The company tested its technology on a library in South Korea and said it improved speeds by 20x.

The company will be at TIP Summit 2018 in London to explain what is next.

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