{"id":63093,"date":"2019-02-06T23:15:27","date_gmt":"2019-02-06T15:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/swarm-ceo-theres-no-excuse-to-not-have-global-internet-2\/"},"modified":"2019-02-06T23:15:27","modified_gmt":"2019-02-06T15:15:27","slug":"swarm-ceo-theres-no-excuse-to-not-have-global-internet-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/swarm-ceo-theres-no-excuse-to-not-have-global-internet-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Swarm CEO: There\u2019s No Excuse to Not Have Global Internet"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Swarm Technologies<\/strong> is making quite a buzz in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). With seven satellites already orbiting and 150 planned total, the ambitious company has made big financial strides in recently securing $25 million in Series-A funding. The company is working to move forward from its misstep with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission<\/strong> (FCC), which fined the company last year for an unauthorized satellite launch.<\/p>\n

Swarm is now entirely focused on its mission, to close the digital divide once and for all. \u201cWe\u2019re really excited about Swarm providing global internet services to any device, any person, anywhere on Earth. We\u2019re starting with relatively low data rates, so we\u2019re looking forward to improving total data rates and capacity as we deploy this network,\u201d Swarm Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sara Spangelo told Via Satellite<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The company was founded by Spangelo and Ben Longmier \u2014 who shared a common childhood aspiration of wanting to become an astronaut, yet complement each other with different skillsets. Spangelo currently serves as the company\u2019s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), while Longmier focuses on technology as the company\u2019s Chief Technology Officer (CTO). In the following interview, we chatted with Spangelo about the company\u2019s beginnings, the recently acquired funding, and what exciting things are next for Swarm Technologies.<\/p>\n

VIA SATELLITE:<\/em><\/strong> What inspired you to start Swarm?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Sara Spangelo:<\/strong> Ben and I had been frustrated with the existing communications infrastructure for quite a while. That was a huge motivation, and that\u2019s why we wanted to start Swarm \u2014 to really build something that would lend to global, affordable internet. We had been involved in balloon projects, and obviously had a background in satellite systems, but realized there wasn\u2019t an elegant solution that was truly global and cost effective.<\/p>\n

VIA SATELLITE<\/em><\/strong>: Congratulations on recently closing your Series A funding round with $25 million! What will you use this new funding for?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Spangelo: <\/strong>We found partners and we\u2019re very happy with their involvement so far. But we\u2019re actually focusing on three things: the first is to launch our entire constellation of 150 satellites; we have enough capital and we\u2019re looking to deploy that in the next 18 months. The second is hiring a world class team \u2014 we\u2019re actively recruiting and hiring right now, and you can see all the open jobs at our website. We\u2019re looking to triple our team in 2019. And the third thing is to accelerate our software and hardware development so we can really deliver a top tier consumer experience, starting late 2019\/early 2020.<\/p>\n

VIA SATELLITE<\/em><\/strong>: Could you tell me about your constellation plans and where you currently are with that? <\/strong> <\/strong><\/h4>\n

Spangelo: <\/strong>We currently have seven satellites in orbit. Our full constellation will be 150 and that should be up by mid-2020.<\/p>\n

VIA SATELLITE<\/em><\/strong>: Many companies are developing satellite constellations \u2014 what is Swarm\u2019s unique angle?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Spangelo: <\/strong>Our first unique angle is our very unique launch economics. The fact that we were able to develop a satellite that was a quarter U (.25U) enables us to launch these satellites for much lower cost relative to our competitors, and particularly relative to the existing satellite providers today. Launch costs scale directly with the mass and volume of the satellites, so if you\u2019re able to get the satellite size down to 1\/12 \u2014 which we\u2019ve done compared to a 3U \u2014 the cost will go down to 1\/12. That means we need to secure less capital to launch our entire constellation.<\/p>\n

As for the second area, because our satellite size is so small, we can go as secondary payloads on a lot of interesting launch opportunities \u2014 which provides us a lot of launch availability.<\/p>\n

Also, the fact that we\u2019ve executed pretty quickly up until this point \u2014 we have seven satellites on orbit, and that is pretty unique relative to our competitors.<\/p>\n

VIA SATELLITE<\/em><\/strong>: Which companies have you partnered with? And which ones have done pilot testing for you?
\n<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Spangelo: <\/strong>We have partnered with several Fortune 100 companies. The only one I can talk about right now is Autonomic<\/strong> and Ford<\/strong>. We\u2019ve also partnered with SweetSense<\/strong> which is a global development humanitarian company \u2014 we\u2019re looking forward to announcing the use cases, probably within the next quarter or two. We\u2019ve also done other partnerships and pilots with other startups and small companies across agriculture, maritime, logistics, and energy.<\/p>\n

VIA SATELLITE<\/em><\/strong>: Tell me a little more about your work with Autonomic. What would Swarm bring to the automotive industry and the future of connected transportation?
\n<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Spangelo: <\/strong>Ford is really committed to 100 percent connectivity. We\u2019re able to support that goal by filling in the gaps in cell coverage. Right now, if you drive to the mountains around here, there\u2019s a lack of cell connectivity. If you have any sort of emergency with your car, you wouldn\u2019t be able to call for help. By putting Swarm tiles or equipment in Ford vehicles, and having Swarm satellites always overhead, people will be able to essentially hit a \u2018panic\u2019 button and request help regardless of where they are on the planet. We\u2019re really enabling the ability to have a connectivity solution on a global scale.<\/p>\n

VIA SATELLITE<\/em><\/strong>: How do you see Swarm making a mark on the greater Internet of Things (IOT) landscape?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Spangelo: <\/strong>That\u2019s a really interesting question \u2014 thanks for asking it! Something we\u2019re really excited about is being able to enable IOT devices to exist anywhere on the planet, and be able to connect back to the internet \u2014 and that\u2019s something that doesn\u2019t exist today. So instead of just being in urban environments or where there\u2019s low power wide area wide networks, you could configure your IOT device anywhere. That opens up opportunities in agriculture, in logistics, in container ships going across the ocean, in trucking \u2014 where trucks are going through areas where there isn\u2019t reliable cell connectivity. We\u2019re also hoping to help produce the ability to manage a lot of carriers and network providers, globally. So instead of having to work with AT&T<\/strong> here, and Comcast<\/strong> there, you can just work with Swarm on a global scale \u2014 and that\u2019s a pretty unique value proposition that you can only get from satellite.<\/p>\n

VIA SATELLITE<\/em><\/strong>: Who do you see as your primary end user base?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Spangelo: <\/strong>The first is large companies, like enterprise, who are operating internet-connected devices outside of cell range. Other stakeholders are business unit owners, so Chief Technology Officers (CTOs), Chief Information Officers (CIOs), Vice Presidents (VPs) of data functions, etc., who are really trying to solve for this problem \u2014 so they look to Swarm for a connectivity solution.<\/p>\n

VIA SATELLITE<\/em><\/strong>: Where do you see Swarm in the next five or 10 years?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Spangelo: <\/strong>We\u2019re really excited about Swarm providing global internet services to any device, any person, anywhere on Earth. We\u2019re starting with relatively low data rates, and we\u2019re looking forward to improving total data rates and capacity as we deploy this network. But ultimately, we\u2019re making it so there\u2019s no excuse to not have internet connectivity, anywhere on Earth \u2014 and Swarm is the solution that will solve for that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Swarm Technologies is making quite a buzz in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). With seven satellites already orbiting and 150 planned total, the ambitious company has made big financial strides in recently securing $25 million in Series-A funding. The company is working to move forward from its misstep with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63095,"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-63093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63093"}],"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=63093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}