Transcelestial’s Centauri device
Transcelestial Technologies, a last-mile internet connectivity startup based out of Singapore, has announced its entry into the Philippines by raising a strategic funding of US$2 million from Kickstart Ventures.
This is the first publicly-announced investment by Kickstart Ventures from its recently-announced US$180-million ACTIVE Fund, which is backed by Ayala Corporation.
Several of Ayala’s subsidiaries — namely AC Energy, AC Industrials, AC Ventures, BPI, and Kickstart’s parent company Globe Telecom — also participated in the latest round.
“The team at Kickstart have been fully aligned with our goals of solving the last-mile and global bottlenecks in internet distribution. We could not have asked for a better partner to help us not only work with Globe in Philippines but also advise us on bringing our current and future products to solve some of the challenges in the archipelago nation,” said Rohit Jha, CEO of Transcelestial.
Also Read: Kickstart Ventures to manage Ayala’s US$150M Corporate VC fund in Philippines
“As more Filipinos become reliant on internet access for their livelihood and social connections, we’re hopeful that Transcelestial will help increase internet penetration and provide telcos and ISPs with an affordable option for 5G deployment,” said Minette Navarrete, President of Kickstart Ventures.
Founded in December 2016, Transcelestial is building what it claims to be a space laser network to “deliver a step-change in internet connectivity globally”.
The startup has developed Centauri, a mass-produced network device that leverages its proprietary Wireless Laser Communication Technology to create a wireless distribution network between buildings, traditional cell towers, street-level poles and other physical infrastructure.
It is the size of a shoe-box weighing less than 3kg and is capable of delivering fibre-like speeds to customers. It is a rapidly-deployable, low-cost and high-speed solution, which can be used in dense residential areas that require bandwidth upgrades.
Two versions of the device are available — 1 Gbps Full Duplex (4G & Enterprise ready) and 10 Gbps Full Duplex (5G-ready). Higher bandwidth capabilities will be unlocked and available for order shortly.
Centauri is aimed at providing a “rapidly deployable, affordable and high-speed last-mile connectivity solution”, especially for dense residential areas during COVID-19 period which require urgent bandwidth upgrades.
The Philippines is the top country in the world in terms of the number of hours spent on the internet with 67 per cent penetration. It is also the top country in the world for mobile use and in the top 3 for laptop, desktop and tablet use.
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Nearly 69 per cent of Philippines watches streaming TV content, 2 points higher than the worldwide average (beating Sweden, India and the UK).
The country is also amongst the top 2 countries in terms of time spent on game consoles (beating countries like China and India). It is the top country in the world using social media.
The archipelago is ahead of the world average on using digital banking and financial services (beating the US) and has the highest ownership of cryptocurrency. It had more new mobile connections activated last year than the next 10 countries combined.
“But the Philippines’s average download speed is only 50 per cent of the world average on mobile and only 34 per cent of world average on fixed connections to homes and offices. This is a major result of bottlenecks created by difficulty in bringing high speed internet backbone to dense population clusters. The sheer number of islands adds to the problem,” Jha pointed out.
“During COVID-19, it is absolutely critical that the people of Philippines continue to work remotely from their homes, continuing to make a livelihood. Transcelestial is here to help telecoms, ISPs, Enterprises and the Government help bridge this shortfall,” he shared.
As for telcos, the Centuari technology unlocks fibre-equivalent high bandwidth between 4G/5G cell towers and the telecom core network which connects back to their data centres. With the device in place, there are no delays caused by right of way issues and the built in automatic alignment technology makes the deployment happen within minutes, claimed Jha.
Also Read: Transcelestial aims to help telcos roll out 5G rapidly and cost effectively in SEA
In addition, there are no spectrum charges and no extra digging costs for laying fibre cables. As a result, one can get to 5G revenues faster by rolling out a transmission network with a reduced total cost and time of ownership as compared to fibre.
On the other hand, Centauri technology allows internet service providers to bypass the expensive fibre optics costs to customer buildings and premises. They can create their wireless laser rings and mesh between their customers’ buildings and infrastructure to deliver low-latency and high-speed distribution to homes and offices.
As for enterprise, the Centauri technology when used in conjunction with their selected telecom or ISP partner will deliver the best experience to their business use case at a significantly more affordable cost to their business in the difficult COVID-19 period.
For government, its technology helps it bring low-cost ultra high-speed audiovisual and data capabilities to schools, hospitals, government offices and population centres far away from Tier 1 cities.
In July, Transcelestial secured a US$9.6 million in Series A round of investment, co-led by EDBI and Wavemaker Partners. The firm’s other investors are Airbus Ventures, Cap Vista, SEEDS Capital (Enterprise SG), Entrepreneur First, Partech Ventures, 500 Startups, AirTree Ventures, Tekton Ventures, SGInnovate, SparkLabs Global Ventures, Michael Seibel (CEO of Y-Combinator, Founder of Twitch.tv), and Charles Songhurst (Microsoft’s former Head of Corporate Strategy).
In 2018, Transcelestial raised US$1.8 million in seed funding.
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Image Credit: Transcelestial Technologies.
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