Isotropic Systems has announced that is has fully secured funding of over $40 million, providing the necessary capital required to develop what the London-based firm describes as its “game-changing multi-beam antennas”. The money is earmarked to accelerate growth and development of the antenna ahead of its launch, slated for 2022.

The money has come from a variety of sources including the UK government via the Government’s Future Fund, equity participation through global strategic investors, venture capital, and UK grant funding support awarded by the UK Space Agency. SES led the funding round, along with participation from specialised space investors Orbital Ventures, and existing investors Boeing HorizonX Global Ventures, Space Angels, and Firmament Ventures.

Isotropic will use the money to accelerate its production phase with the roll out of its phase one terminal now expected early 2022 to support new constellations and satellites which will be launching that year. Specifically, the firm will also open a 20,000 square foot technology and testing facility near their HQ in Reading, UK. There will also be an additional 150 highly-skilled engineering roles created over the next two years.

“Constellations and launch companies are already getting a lot of attention with their disruptive products and services and now key areas such as ground segment connectivity are likely to attract the next wave of investment, and this UK company is leading the charge,” says Gareth Keane, a Partner at Orbital Ventures/Promus Ventures. It’s Isotropic’s patented radio frequency optics technology which will enable the high-performance multi-beam antenna to simultaneously link with multiple satellites in multiple orbits that promises to unlock “unprecedented connectivity” across a broad range of markets via these new constellations, such as O3b, OneWeb, and Starlink to mention just a few.

The firm’s Founder and CEO, John Finney, believes that the firm is extremely well positioned to unlock a new age of high-powered, multi-orbit connectivity with its next-gen multi-beam antenna. “As one satellite constellation after another is announced for launch in future years, our technology is unique in that it allows service providers and end users to take the best of the many thousands of satellites going into orbit using a single integrated terminal, unlocking the demand for the satellite industry as a whole, radically changing the way bandwidth services are delivered to end-users and vastly exceeding the capability of any single satellite system,” he says.

Finney is in no doubt that the new product will unlock significant export revenue for the UK economy and across the satellite sector.