Starlink’s Satellite Internet Star Wars

TECH IN THE NEWS

“No Hurry” To Cut - Fed Chair Powell on Monday dampened rate cut hopes, saying his base case is for another 50 bps cut this year, and a neutral rate "over time."

Chips to Mideast - The Commerce Department unveiled a rule that could ease shipments of AI chips to data centers in the Middle East for “validated end users”.

T-Mobile Settlement - The telco has reached a $31.5M settlement with the FTC over the data breaches that impacted tens of millions of US consumers.

Nuclear Startup - Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund has backed its first nuclear fission fuel start-up, aiming to produce the fuel used to power advanced next-gen reactors.

OpenAI Round - SoftBank is putting $500M into OpenAI’s soon-to-close round which is expected to raise $6.5b at a $150b valuation, joined by Thrive, Microsoft, Tiger Global, and Coatue, among others. Apple has reportedly dropped out.

COMPANIES TO WATCH

Chip IPO - Coatue-backed US AI chip firm Cerebras has revealed a 3x revenue jump in its IPO filing. Its’ IPO will likely serve as a litmus test for the market's AI appetite.

Thrive Capital - Josh Kushner’s VC firm has raised $391.3M in new capital for an investment vehicle associated with its $3.5b growth fund launched in August.

11x.ai - The AI-powered sales bots startup just closed a $50M Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz, valuing the company at around $350M.

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THE HOTTEST THING IN TECH
Starlink’s Star Wars For the Satellite Internet Market

Starlink is skyrocketing! The SpaceX satellite internet network announced Thursday it’s approaching 4 million customers and has secured major deals with United Airlines and Air France to provide in-flight Wi-Fi across their entire fleets. It still has a battle on its hands, both in the form of challenges from Amazon’s Project Kuiper and a few smaller rivals, and according to Elon Musk, rolls of unwieldy FCC red tape. 

Starlink’s Excellent, Not Bad, Very Good Year

Many past satellite internet ventures have struggled. In the early 2000s, a number went bankrupt, so figuring out how to make Starlink a commercially viable venture has been a big, looming question mark for SpaceX. But, now it’s projected to earn $6.6b in revenue in 2024, outperforming competitors. The company is also actively pursuing defense contracts and transportation partnerships to fuel growth. A big advantage for Starlink is the vast amount of launch capacity SpaceX has, with multiple NASA and defense contracts meaning plenty of opportunities to piggy-back for cheap orbital launch access and over 6,500 satellites already in orbit. 

A Multifaceted Approach

Starlink's success is also attributed to its strategic partnerships with airlines like Hawaiian Airlines and more recently, United, and Air France, (France’s national carrier) providing in-flight Wi-Fi services. T-Mobile also recently tested using Starlink to send emergency alerts off the grid. In addition it recently launched the new “Mini” backpack-sized internet module. This exciting unit is small enough for offgrid camping etc, and completely seamlessly connects from anywhere with 250+ mbps connection. Then there is the Tesla/xAI tie up which gives Starlink a big advantage in the AI data center and automotive internet market. If the robotaxis take off, Starlink will potentially be providing internet to an ever-increasing fleet globally.

Kuiper Tightens it’s Belt

Amazon's rival satellite internet project, Project Kuiper, is struggling to compete. Its Blue Origin launch service is nowhere on the scale of SpaceX, meaning costs are higher as it has to work with partner United Launch Alliance. Amazon is also relying heavily on newly developed rockets which may experience delays, potentially pushing back their launch schedule. As a result, Amazon is facing higher than anticipated deployment costs, estimated between $16.5b to $20b. Meeting the FCC deadline for satellite launches by mid-2026 will be a significant challenge.

There are also concerns about whether Amazon can achieve success in this market, given its mixed track record with ventures like Alexa and Halo fitness trackers. Still, its experience in consumer electronics manufacturing, its vast AWS infrastructure, and partnerships with companies like Verizon and Vodafone, position Kuiper for potential success in the long term. Amazon could potentially earn a substantial $36 billion annually if it manages to attract 100 million subscribers with a $30 monthly fee. 

A Star Studded Field

AST SpaceMobile is a smaller Starlink startup competitor which saw its stock soar 1,370%+ since April following the launch of its first 5 commercial satellites. The FCC in August also permitted early 2000s rival Globalstar to operate 17 new cellphone-to-cellphone satellites. Despite the excitement surrounding these smaller companies, they are not projected to be profitable for several years. Market research firm Quilty Space believes Starlink will far exceed its rivals in revenue this year.

Footnote:

It’s not a direct competitor but this one is pretty cool in a crazy sci-fi way. US startup Reflect Orbital is developing satellites with mirrors to reflect sunlight onto Earth, to "extend" daylight and increase solar farm output. If successful, they envision a massive constellation of much larger, brighter satellites, rivaling the scale of Starlink. 

FOR INVESTORS
Open Deals

Request an intro to founders - [email protected]

1. 🔥⏱️ Robotics for Agricultural Efficiency - Pittsburgh - Built & deployed robotic hardware for the largest U.S. tree nurseries, reducing costs and increasing efficiency by 50x. Hardware and AI data layer. Beginning to scale globally. Post-revenue, at capacity. (Seed+)
   

2. 🔥⏱️ Quant Trading Software Company - New Jersey - Large-scale automated day-trading algorithm designed for volatile U.S. equity markets. Profitable through extensive backtesting and live simulation. Seeking equity investment for software company.

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FOR EMPLOYERS
Job Candidates

Request an intro to candidates - [email protected].

1. Struck Capital Venture Associate, ex-West2East (Russell Wilson) Director of Special Projects, ex-Phoenix Holdings Investment Associate. Harvard BA. Vietnamese pro basketball player.

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TRENDING TOOLS AND BUZZY TECH
Tools

Apple - 1. HomePods coming soon with tvOS. | 2. A list of iOS 18 3rd party apps.

Google - AlphaChip reinforcement learning chip design method is now public.

Raspberry Pi x Sony - $70 GPU-free AI-powered camera for microcomputers.

Fujitsu - Takane Japanese-language LLM for enterprise use in collab with Cohere.

Open NotebookLM - Free o-s Google NotebookLM rival converts PDFs to podcasts.

Tech

Liquid - MIT spinoff debuts state-of-the-art non-transformer AI models.

Brain Implants - First “graphene” implant on a human brain unlocks new therapies.

Robot Hand - Hand detaches from arm, crawls to objects, and picks them up.

Saft - Total Energy Subs. to provide lithium batteries for German hydrogen trains.

Beta Technologies - EVTOL air taxi unveiled that can actually carry passengers.

China Space Agency - 1. First 'reusable, returnable' satellite Shijian-19. | 2. Lightweight lunar spacesuit revealed.

🚨TECH BUZZ ANNOUNCEMENT:

We’ve made some changes — Our Closed Deals, Companies to Watch, and Funding Buzz sections will now arrive every Monday AM wrapping up the week’s top deals.

Please get in touch with feedback on this change and any other suggestions as to what you would like us to feature more of.