{"id":49620,"date":"2025-02-27T23:49:41","date_gmt":"2025-02-27T15:49:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/skylo-raises-30m-in-funding-to-scale-its-direct-to-device-reach\/"},"modified":"2025-02-27T23:49:41","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T15:49:41","slug":"skylo-raises-30m-in-funding-to-scale-its-direct-to-device-reach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/skylo-raises-30m-in-funding-to-scale-its-direct-to-device-reach\/","title":{"rendered":"Skylo Raises $30M in Funding to Scale its Direct-to-Device Reach"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n
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Skylo\u2019s executive team. From left: Dr. Andrew Kalman, Dr. Andrew Nuttall, Parthsarathi Trivedi, and Tarun Gupta. Photo: Skylo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Skylo<\/b> has raised $30 million in an oversubscribed funding round, funding that CEO Parthsarathi Trivedi tells Via Satellite<\/em> the company plans to invest in market expansion to grow its position in the direct-to-device (D2D) market. <\/p>\n

NGP Capital<\/b> led the round, announced Feb. 27. Westly Group<\/b> joined the round, along with existing investors Intel Capital<\/b>, BMW i Ventures<\/b>, Samsung Catalyst Fund<\/b>, Next47<\/b>, and others. This comes one year after Skylo raised $37 million in 2024. <\/p>\n

Skylo works with mobile network operators and device and chip manufacturers to enable standards-based D2D services using mobile satellite services (MSS) spectrum from satellite partners, including Viasat. <\/b>The company is currently providing D2D service for both the Google Pixel phone and for Verizon customers with compatible devices. Skylo enabled the connectivity for Verizon\u2019s recent D2D commercial featuring astronaut Buzz Aldrin. <\/p>\n

Trivedi told Via Satellite<\/i> on Thursday that \u201cmillions\u201d of devices are activated on its network in the U.S. <\/p>\n

As the competition is heating up in the D2D market \u2014 with AST SpaceMobile and Starlink ramping up testing and beta services with their MNO partners, and Apple investing in a next-generation cosntellation \u2014 Trivedi said Skylo is focused on providing a seamless experience of switching between cellular and satellite, and using its licensed MSS spectrum to expand its reach globally. <\/p>\n

\u201cYour user experience should be that the phone rings in your pocket when you are walking outside or you are in your car. It should be that seamless. It\u2019s not just about cost per bit, it\u2019s about the user experience. That\u2019s the thing we are really honing in on right now,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

In addition, Skylo announced on Thursday that its service is live this month in Brazil, Australia, and New Zealand. Trivedi pointed to the benefit of using MSS spectrum for helping Skylo expand in global markets and work directly with device manufacturers in addition to MNOs. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe work we do to enable these markets is extremely hard,\u201d Trivedi said. \u201cWhen we go in there, we take advantage of the existing ruleset that exists in these countries for MSS. We don\u2019t require a change in regulation to activate our service, which is a big enabler. That speaks to why we use licensed spectrum.\u201d <\/p>\n

Debjit Mukerji, partner at NGP Capital, pointed to Skylo\u2019s potential in D2D in a news release. NGP Capital is primarily backed by Nokia. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is already operating one of the world\u2019s first commercial solutions at a significant scale, with millions of consumers connected to the Skylo network,\u201d Mukerji said. \u201cWhat has unlocked Skylo\u2019s incredible growth is the depth of its \u2018standards-plus\u2019 technology stack that democratizes access to ubiquitous mobile connectivity.\u201d  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Skylo\u2019s executive team. From left: Dr. Andrew Kalman, Dr. Andrew Nuttall, Parthsarathi Trivedi, and Tarun Gupta. Photo: Skylo Skylo has raised $30 million in an oversubscribed funding round, funding that CEO Parthsarathi Trivedi tells Via Satellite the company plans to invest in market expansion to grow its position in the direct-to-device (D2D) market.  NGP Capital […]<\/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":[],"class_list":["post-49620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49620"}],"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=49620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}