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Humanity's Expansion Era
Humanity's Expansion Era
You are commander of a spaceship, and you just crash landed on another world. The good news? This world has a thriving…
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John Gedmark shared thisToday we are announcing a $468M credit facility from Export-Import Bank of the United States to fund a massive ramp in satellite production here in America. For a New Prime like Astranis, it's a huge vote of confidence from the United States Government. “Astranis is delivering mission-critical infrastructure to customers around the world at unprecedented speed and scale,” said EXIM Chairman John Jovanovic. “We are confident this is just the beginning. Under President Trump’s leadership, EXIM will continue to help the United States stay ahead of the curve in developing the industries of the future and boost American competitiveness around the globe.” This means we have capital to build more satellites in the United States and get them into orbit faster. As we sign new customers, this helps us move from contract to satellites in orbit at the speed our customers need. Astranis's satellites serve a huge unmet need. This year we've signed some of our biggest and most important deals yet. Earlier this month we announced a partnership with stc group for a dedicated satellite for Saudi Arabia. We have more than $1B in contracts to deliver, and now we can ramp up production to meet this demand and do our part to help re-industrialize America. Thank you to EXIM for backing us. Now, back to building for the Expansion Era.
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John Gedmark shared thisI’m very excited to announce a new Astranis partner in the Middle East and a new satellite-- a dedicated MicroGEO for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Astranis has signed a contract with stc, the largest telco in Saudi Arabia, for a satellite that will launch next year to provide mission critical networking and telecoms services. This is a great example of how Astranis is building out the infrastructure of high orbits, helping countries around the world build and deliver the essential services that they need. Importantly, what we do is something that would be impossible on a shared network or LEO constellation. GEO is the only orbit where you can park a satellite over one specific part of the world 24/7, which is why Astranis started there. Our MicroGEO satellites, built in America at a fraction of the cost and time of traditional large satellites, put dedicated satellite capacity within reach of any nation that wants it. Our customers control coverage, payload configuration, and the networking stack end to end. While data stays in country, private and secure. Saudi Arabia is making one of the world’s biggest investments in digital infrastructure, committing over $8 billion to future next-generation network build out, and now that backbone will extend 22,000 miles into space. It is an honor to build for stc group and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Expansion Era is underway.
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John Gedmark shared thisLike it or not, Space is now a dangerous neighborhood. It's time to bring back the neighborhood watch. Today we're announcing Perceptor-- our new Space Domain Awareness spacecraft, and our first product line outside of comms. The message we've heard from Space Force these last few years has been loud and clear-- GEO is the most important orbit for military space. But that presents a problem, since there are few companies that can reliably and quickly deploy spacecraft to GEO. And it's not just for the military. The infrastructure operating in GEO provides communications, navigation and other critical services that billions of people rely on. It is well known that China and Russia are now launching spacecraft capable of approaching, inspecting and potentially interfering with other satellites. Based on the flight proven MicroGEO platform Astranis is already flying on orbit today, Perceptor brings monitoring and maneuverability to GEO and other high orbits. When an unfamiliar object begins maneuvering near a critical asset, operators need more than a dot on a screen. They need eyes in the sky they can rely on. Satellites in GEO operate across an enormous area nearly 36,000 kilometers up, that encompasses the entire Earth. Ground-based systems can’t provide the persistent, close-range awareness needed to understand exactly what another spacecraft is doing or why it may be maneuvering near a critical asset. As humanity expands outward from LEO and builds out the infrastructure layer higher up, it needs safety and security in place to protect it. That's why Astranis has answered the call. Ad astra per aspera.
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John Gedmark shared thisI'm excited to announce Astranis Space Technologies has raised $450 million of new capital. All of it so we can scale to meet surging demand for advanced high-orbit spacecraft— for GEO, MEO, and beyond. This includes a $300 million Series E led by Snowpoint and Franklin Templeton, with Andreessen Horowitz, BlackRock, Baillie Gifford, Fidelity, BAM Elevate, Nimble Partners, and Friends & Family Capital, participating alongside many others. A delayed-draw credit facility by Trinity Capital adds up to $155 million of additional capital to support the addition of new manufacturing capacity and support future growth. In our commercial business, we've seen more demand than ever for sovereign systems. As countries and large enterprises need dedicated, secure communications infrastructure. Something that can only be provided from Geostationary Orbit. For our US Government customers, Astranis has proven we can serve as a Neo Prime for some of the most important defense missions. And we are now spooling up to support multiple US Government Programs of Record simultaneously. Astranis has now been selected as Prime for the initial phase of 3 separate Programs of Record— PTS-G, Resilient GPS, and RG-XX/Andromeda. And we’re just getting started. This comes as Space Force is seeing one of the largest budget increases ever seen by a service branch with this year’s budget increasing to $71.1 billion. That is in direct response to new space threats posed by adversaries China and Russia. With GEO being where our most critical national security space capabilities lie, we can’t afford to delay. We need to move with incredible speed, and Astranis is ready to serve. Special thanks to the Astranis existing investors who also participated in this financing round and have backed us from the beginning, including ACE, Elefund, Garage Capital, Helium-3, Liquid2, Metaplanet, and Uncorrelated. This brings Astranis’s total raised to more than $1.2 billion, and this capital goes straight to work.
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John Gedmark shared thisOver the last 2 years I've been getting to know four-star General John Hyten, former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I'm very excited to announce that Gen. Hyten will be joining Astranis as Strategic Advisor, effective immediately, working directly with me. Gen Hyten will also Chair a new Strategic Advisory Board we are announcing today, that will advise me and the Astranis executive team as we scale the business and expand our product offerings for commercial customers around the world and for the US government. As the former Commander of US Strategic Command, and the former Commander of Air Force Space Command —the predecessor organization to US Space Force— Gen. Hyten is well-known as one of the most respected and admired leaders in the history of US military space. Indeed, he is something of a legendary figure in our industry. See bio below. Famously, Gen. Hyten drew a line in the sand on legacy large satellites and kicked off the current wave of smaller, proliferated satellite systems, stating "I won’t support the development any further of large, big, fat, juicy targets. I won’t support that. We are going to go down a different path. And we have to go down that path quickly.” At Astranis we build secure, resilient communications and space infrastructure for customers around the world and for the US military. With geopolitical conflicts on the rise, that is needed now more than ever. Gen. Hyten brings a passion for innovative, fast-moving approaches and we could not be more honored and excited to have him supporting us at Astranis. About General John Hyten General Hyten served as the 11th Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, from 2019 to 2021. General Hyten previously served as the Commander of United States Strategic Command, where he commanded 150,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines. In that command, he was responsible for the nuclear triad that includes all operational nuclear weapons of the United States. He held direct responsibility for their readiness, their movements, and, if called upon, their strike capabilities. He was also responsible for all US missile defense, as well as all supporting space, cyber, and ground systems. Prior to that, General Hyten served as the Commander of Air Force Space Command, the predecessor organization to the United States Space Force. Gen. Hyten received his bachelor’s degree in engineering and applied sciences from Harvard University, on an Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps scholarship, and was commissioned a second lieutenant. The general’s career began in engineering and acquisition before transitioning to space operations. General Hyten resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his wife Laura Hyten.
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John Gedmark shared thisVery excited to announce that Astranis is building a new satellite for Oman. We've signed a 9-figure contract with MB Group —the largest oil and gas conglomerate in Oman— to bring Oman its first dedicated communications satellite. This partnership was announced today in Oman with the leadership of MB Group and senior government officials from the Oman Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology. The deal is part of an overall $200 million investment by MB Group in sovereign connectivity, advancing the Vision 2040 program by the Oman government. This satellite will go up on our Block 3 launch later this year, going from contract to operations in months, not years. Sovereign connectivity is no longer optional. Countries need private, secure networks to know their data is secure and in the right hands. Astranis builds dedicated satellites that make this possible, giving our customer full control over payload configuration, coverage, and network operations. We are the only company that gives our customers a standalone, dedicated network that spans their geography of choice and delivers enterprise-grade security, customizability, and operational visibility of the network and data traffic. This type of infrastructure is impossible to replicate with shared networks or terrestrial links alone. And that's why countries like Oman and Taiwan are choosing Astranis. We built Astranis on the belief that access to secure, reliable communications infrastructure is foundational to growth. It's an honor to partner with MB Group and Oman, and we look forward to supporting the people of Oman and their digital future for many years to come.
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John Gedmark reposted thisJohn Gedmark reposted thisAt the UP.Summit, John Gedmark, Co-Founder & CEO of Astranis Space Technologies, laid out why we’ve entered a new golden age of space, and why geostationary orbit (GEO) is becoming strategically important again. Enabled by reusable rockets and modern manufacturing, Astranis is building a new class of GEO satellites that deliver broadband, enterprise connectivity, and critical national security capabilities, faster and at lower cost than legacy systems. From communications to defense and more, this conversation highlights how commercial space companies are reshaping both global connectivity and U.S. leadership beyond Earth. Watch the full session from UP.Summit: https://lnkd.in/e-JNT2dK #UPSummit #Astranis #JohnGedmark #Satellites #Space #Innovation #NationalSecurity #VentureCapital #Entrepreneurship #GEO #GeostationaryOrbit
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John Gedmark shared thisReally appreciate the write up by Harry McCracken at Fast Company, who is telling the full Astranis story for the first time. And we think its a critical story to tell-- Astranis today builds more commercial GEO satellites than the rest of the industry combined. But we're not stopping there. We believe it’s critical that we bring back manufacturing to the United States and rebuild our industrial base. Especially in aerospace and defense. That’s why we are scaling up production, tripling our output from 8 to 24 satellites per year. We have no choice— our commercial and defense customers demand it. They want as many satellites as we can build. Here’s how: ‣ We’re making huge investments in our in-house machining capabilities. That includes our massive new Makino Mag3.EX. It’s a beast of a horizontal endmill, weighing in at 100,000 pounds. it can remove a ridiculous 75 pounds of metal per minute. We’re using it to bring structural panel builds in house. Previously, those panels were quoted with over a 1-year lead time, but we’ll machine our own panels in a single day. ‣ We’ve added other CNC machines in total now also, basically bringing them in as fast as we can buy them, from manufacturers like Haas, Matsuura, and DMG Mori. And we are running lights-out on many of these machines today, building everything from brackets to boxes to other structural elements, in house, from raw aluminum and titanium stock. ‣ We’re upgrading our in-house testing and qualification. We added a new crown jewel recently, a massive 15-foot-diameter vacuum chamber with pumps capable of maintaining a hard vacuum even as we fire xenon thrusters inside it. We’ve done some outrageously cool testing in this chamber, bringing in house yet another costly and time-consuming test. ‣ We upgraded our electronics labs, outfitting them with state of the art equipment for board bringup and testing. Power supplies, signal generators, spectrum analyzers, and more. We now have two large labs— one for our digital payloads, and one for the satellite bus including power, avionics, and guidance-navigation-control (GNC) systems. ‣ And, of course, we’re hiring. We now have an incredible team of 500 working out of our San Francisco office daily, and we’re hiring even more now to reach scale. We may be the largest company in SF with a 5-days-per-week in person office culture. Because there’s no other way to build real hardware. This is the kind of investment in our capabilities it takes to bring real manufacturing back to America— a lot of hardware, a lot of people, and a lot of iterative improvement along the way. But we know we can do it, and we know we must do it. For our customers and for our country.
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1y
Thanks Larsen! Couldn't have done it without you.
You guys have been with us for a long time. Here's to many more years to come.
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John Gedmark liked thisJohn Gedmark liked thisSnapMagic has officially moved into our new San Francisco HQ! At SnapMagic, we are creating a future where engineers are free to do what they do best: innovate, design, and build the next generation of technology. As the pioneers of the first search engine for electronics CAD, SnapMagic is already trusted by over 2 million professional engineers around the world. That trust means everything to us, and we are just getting started. We are profitable. We are growing fast. We are building with intensity, focus, and heart. And now, from our new HQ in San Francisco, we are scaling the team that will help define the future of electronics design. We are hiring across the board and looking for exceptional people who want to move fast, think deeply, and build alongside a high-performing, thoughtful team. If that sounds like you, we would love to meet you. Explore open roles and apply: careers.snapmagic.com #Hiring
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John Gedmark liked thisJohn Gedmark liked thisI’m really excited to share that I’m joining Benchmark. The past two years as a full time investor have been the most rewarding of my career. I really love venture capital, which is not something I ever imagined I’d say when I was kid, but here we are. I love new ideas and being part of a team with a mission. I love getting to be there for people who are struggling towards goals they really care about. I love learning from people who are better CEOs than I ever was. I love the texture of the work, the competition, and the way the job lets you invest in relationships. I’ve even turned into a little venture nerd with a podcast who goes around harassing great investors and founders, trying to learn as much as I can as fast as possible. As I’ve gotten to know the team at Benchmark I’ve come to admire so much about each of them. Peter Fenton is truly playing his own game. A lot of what he says sounds like poetry at first, but as the ideas roll around in your head for a while you realize how much depth they have. I first heard about Eric Vishria many years ago from my friend Saji at Benchling while I was building Lattice, who described him as the most amazing board member and attributed him with a lot of the company’s success. That’s the kind of partner I want to be one day. Chetan Puttagunta is brilliant and truly thinks for himself; I’ve realized over time what a courageous guy he is. And then there’s my friend Everett "Ev" Randle, whose skills complement mine and who I just love to be around. I can’t wait to have him as a partner in crime. When given the chance to work with this group I just knew I had to go. One of my motivating north stars with Alt Capital was to build a firm and be a partner that I most would have wanted as an entrepreneur. Although I haven’t gotten everywhere I want to be yet, I’m proud of the work so far. And now I’m excited to build on that work at Benchmark, where I hope to increase my rate of learning and get armed with the power of a partnership so I can help founders reach their dreams even more. Thank you to the companies who’ve let me invest with them at Alt Cap. I’m keeping all my board seats and supporting everyone just the same as before. Thank you to the LPs who’ve backed me as well. I am so excited about the portfolio we have and am grateful I can stick with all those companies. And finally thank you to my teammates, Bala C., Vivek Katara, and Nate Collins. Bala took a bet on me and started investing with me before it was remotely obvious, and we’ve been able to grow so much figuring it out together as investors. I credit Nate with helping Alt start feeling like a firm. He joined us from First Round over a year ago and made everything run smoothly. And while Vivek joined just a little while ago, even in the short time we’ve worked together he’s had a meaningful impact on how we think and invest. They’re all joining Benchmark with me. So pumped for this chapter.
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Ethan Barajas
We have scaled everything in space except the workforce. The ISS runs on a handful of astronauts stuck doing logistics and upkeep instead of the science only humans can do. At Icarus, we are changing this. Our first robotic mission to the ISS, JOYRIDE-1, launches early next year. We aren't replacing astronauts, we are extending what's possible in orbit. More robots in space means more humans in space. Glad to get into this and more with Mike Gruss and the SpaceNews team on a podcast we recorded today at #SmallSat. In Salt Lake this week? DM me, let's chat robots and space logistics!
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Victor Tagborloh
US-based AI startup Wispr has raised $280 million in Series B funding at a $2 billion valuation, taking its total funding to $361 million. The round was led by Menlo Ventures, with participation from existing and new investors including Peak XV, NEA, 8VC and Goodwater. The company will use the capital to strengthen R&D, improve speech recognition and expand its voice technology beyond dictation. Wispr’s flagship product, Flow, lets users write emails, messages and documents by speaking, while its new Canto speech model is designed for real-world conditions such as noisy environments and multilingual conversations. The company claims Canto can reduce word error rates in particularly noisy settings from 30%+ to 5-10%, while cutting the need for manual edits to voice-generated text by 30-35%. Wispr says users have already generated 60 billion+ words through Flow, with the platform used across almost all Fortune 500 companies and by 10,000+ enterprises.
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