About Astranis Space Technologies
Astranis was founded in 2015 by John Gedmark and Ryan McLinko, based on the observation that traditional geostationary communications satellites, the large satellites that sit in a fixed position roughly 22,000 miles above the equator and have historically provided the backbone for much of the world's television broadcast and long-distance internet connectivity, are typically enormous, expensive, multi-ton spacecraft costing hundreds of millions of dollars and taking years to build, making them economically viable only for the largest markets and applications. Astranis set out to build much smaller, lower-cost geostationary satellites, roughly the size of a small refrigerator rather than a school bus, using a more standardized, software-defined satellite bus design intended to be built more quickly and cheaply while still delivering meaningful bandwidth for a specific region or use case.
This smaller form factor lets Astranis address markets that were previously uneconomical for traditional geostationary satellite operators to serve, such as providing dedicated broadband capacity for a single country or region, rather than requiring an operator to fill an entire large satellite's capacity across many customers to justify the cost. The company has signed contracts with telecommunications customers and governments in various countries and regions, including Alaska, Mexico, and the Philippines, to provide dedicated satellite capacity for expanding broadband access in underserved areas, and has also pursued government and defense-related contracts given the strategic importance of resilient, dedicated satellite communications capacity. Astranis has successfully launched several of its MicroGEO satellites into orbit, an important technical milestone validating its smaller satellite bus design, and has raised substantial venture funding from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Venrock, and BlackRock, reaching a valuation in the billions of dollars as demand for satellite-based connectivity has grown alongside the broader "new space" investment wave.
