“One of the main reasons we decided to invest in Astrolight is that we trusted the company’s management and the entire team,” says Gytenis Galkis, a partner at 70 Ventures.
This company has great potential. The product it develops – the transmission of data by laser communication between objects on Earth or between objects in space – is relevant. We see that the field is evolving rapidly and these people have all the necessary competencies to create such a product.”
According to G. Galkis, the challenge to help Astrolight was accepted: “Our main task is to commercialize the product and find customers as soon as possible. We see the potential and the opportunity to expand globally.”
“This investment is a great motivation for our team. When others trust you and the product you are developing, it makes you realize that you are moving in the right direction and more people are seeing the prospect of the product you are developing,” says Vidmantas Tomkus, Director of Astrolight.
“The 70 Ventures VC fund, together with businessman Vladas Lašas, other LitBAN business angels and the European Space Agency, have invested more than half a million euros to complete and commercialize what we have started and to perform further technological research in the area in which we work.”
“The communication technology we are developing enables us to increase the data bandwidth in space up to millions of times,” says Laurynas Mačiulis, Founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Astrolight.
Data transferred from space to Earth is projected to increase 14-fold over the next decade to more than 500 billion gigabytes. The existing satellite radio spectrum will no longer be sufficient to transmit such data and will require a switch to optical spectrum, similar to the switch to fiber Internet on Earth.
Once the prototype is in place, we plan to develop a broadband network of terrestrial optical ground stations to transmit growing geoinformation data from space to Earth.
Asked if he sees progress among Lithuanian companies seeking to work actively in the space industry, G. Galkis replied that such progress is happening: “Vladas Lašas is one of the initiators driving the expansion of this industry and we can already see many exciting achievements.
About seven years ago, we only heard the name of one company working in this industry in Lithuania. And now more and more Lithuanian companies are appearing, they are noticeable all over the world. ”
Astrolight was founded in 2019 by researchers from the Center for Physical and Technological Sciences and VILNIUS TECH University. The company is currently developing free-space optical communication systems with higher data throughput and security compared to radio communications.
The company aims to engage in larger high-tech production chains for satellite telecommunications equipment, by providing laser communication systems for low Earth orbit and interplanetary communications in the near future.
Astrolight currently employs 11 highly qualified staff, including physicists, fiber optic laser engineers, mechanical and electronics design engineers and software developers.