{"id":17547,"date":"2021-05-21T17:33:21","date_gmt":"2021-05-21T09:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/why-space-startups-should-be-careful-about-and-sometimes-avoid-foreign-entanglements\/"},"modified":"2021-05-21T17:33:21","modified_gmt":"2021-05-21T09:33:21","slug":"why-space-startups-should-be-careful-about-and-sometimes-avoid-foreign-entanglements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/why-space-startups-should-be-careful-about-and-sometimes-avoid-foreign-entanglements\/","title":{"rendered":"Why space startups should be careful about (and sometimes avoid) foreign entanglements"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_621677\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-621677\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-621677\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/210520-rbc2-630x350.png\" alt=\"World map indicating ground stations used by RBC Signals\" width=\"630\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/210520-rbc2-630x350.png 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/210520-rbc2-1260x700.png 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/210520-rbc2-768x427.png 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/210520-rbc2.png 1447w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-621677\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">RBC Signals makes use of satellite ground stations across the globe. (RBC Signals Graphic)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Warnings about the potential perils of foreign alliances go back to George Washington\u2019s Farewell Address \u2014 but in the Space Age, the issues surrounding international relations are much more nuanced.<\/p>\n<p>At least that\u2019s the view from Christopher Richins, the founder and CEO of Redmond, Wash.-based RBC Signals.<\/p>\n<p>RBC Signals acts as a broker for global satellite connectivity services, and counts the U.S. government among its customers. But because RBC\u2019s business model relies on partnerships with satellite ground stations around the world, RBC has to work with countries that the U.S. government views as rivals on the space frontier \u2014 specifically, Russia and China.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou don\u2019t have to have the U.S. government as a customer,\u201d Richins told GeekWire. \u201cBut if you do intend to at some point, being mindful of things like cybersecurity and management structure, knowing your customers and knowing your investors \u2014 all of those things will serve you well in removing some of the potential barriers to entry for getting those opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The troubles encountered by Momentus Space, one of RBC Signals\u2019 customers, serve as a cautionary tale. The space-tug startup\u2019s planned merger with a blank-check company, Stable Road Acquisition Corp., has been held up because of U.S. government concerns about Momentus\u2019 Russian co-founders. Moreover, Momentus\u2019 plans for its first launch have been stymied by the Federal Aviation Administration for similar reasons.<\/p>\n<p>Foreign entanglements can bedevil well-established companies like Virgin Galactic as well: Several years ago, the space company founded by British billionaire Richard Branson had to win a licensing exemption from the State Department to fly non-U.S. citizens on its SpaceShipTwo space plane. Even after that exemption was granted, a controversy came up over selling tickets to Chinese citizens.<\/p>\n<p>Mindful of such concerns, Richins said RBC Signals has been treading carefully over the six years of its existence.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Advancements in ground stations - Christopher Richins, RBC Signals\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bE2P9Elu64I?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>RBC Signals\u2019 origins reflect the complexities involved in creating a space startup with international reach. The company got its start in 2015 with a Russian native, Olga Gershenzon, serving as Richins\u2019 co-founder and chief strategy officer.<\/p>\n<p>Gershenzon and her husband, Vladimir, also co-founded a Russian company called Scanex, which processes satellite data and distributes Earth imagery. Scanex has business ties with the likes of Airbus and the U.S. Geological Survey, but in 2018, a couple of the company\u2019s investors were named&nbsp;in news stories&nbsp;about Russian influence operations that targeted the National Rifle Association.<\/p>\n<p>Olga Gershenzon\u2019s LinkedIn page indicates that she left RBC Signals in 2017, and that the couple sold off nearly all of their stake in Scanex before RBC was founded. \u201cOlga hasn\u2019t been associated with RBC for several years, and I\u2019m not aware of any connection with any of that NRA stuff,\u201d Richins said. \u201cThis is actually the first time I\u2019m hearing about anything between Scanex and that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Richins said RBC puts a lot of effort into heading off foreign entanglements.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRBC Signals is a multinational company,\u201d he said, \u201cbut we are structured in a way that allows us to have U.S. operations that are basically completely operated by U.S. personnel only, and then we\u2019ve got a separate part of the company that is more global in nature.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cybersecurity is a special concern.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll of our customer data is protected according to cybersecurity standards in the industry, and our customers choose where they bring their data down,\u201d Richins said. \u201cThey want to be selective about where their information lands, and so we\u2019re able to accommodate that because of the global nature of our network.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Foreign investment is another issue that requires close attention. Past investors in RBC Signals have included China\u2019s Baidu Ventures, Mexico\u2019s MxSpace and venture capitalists from Singapore and the Middle East. More recently, RBC Signals reported a $1.2 million financing round, with some investments from non-U.S. backers.<\/p>\n<p>Richins said such transactions have to be structured to satisfy the requirements laid out by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe converted debt to equity with special attention to terms that keep us within CFIUS safe-harbor requirements,\u201d Richins explained in an email. \u201c<u><\/u><u><\/u><u><\/u>CFIUS has concerns that range from ownership percentage to information rights, etc. We were not a concern before the most recent investment, and we are not a concern after the most recent investment, but issues such as these must be taken into consideration when structuring such an investment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Looking ahead, Richins noted that the U.S. government helped commercial space companies become more competitive in international markets several years ago by easing trade restrictions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think there\u2019s going to be a continued refinement of policy, to protect the national security and the national interest of the U.S., while hopefully preserving our ability to lead in the global space economy,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that\u2019s a pendulum swing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Richins just hopes the pendulum won\u2019t swing back too far.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI hope that we will continue to be leaders,\u201d he said, \u201cand that our regulatory policies will continue to support a good and healthy market for U.S. services abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>RBC Signals makes use of satellite ground stations across the globe. (RBC Signals Graphic) Warnings about the potential perils of foreign alliances go back to George Washington\u2019s Farewell Address \u2014 but in the Space Age, the issues surrounding international relations are much more nuanced. At least that\u2019s the view from Christopher Richins, the founder and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4591,4584,4742],"class_list":["post-17547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-antennas","tag-rbc-signals","tag-trade"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17547"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}