OneWeb raises $1.2 billion in investment capital
The competition heats up: OneWeb, in its effort to build a constellation of 900 satellites to provide internet services worldwide, has raised $1.2 billion.
Japan-based SoftBank invested $1 billion of the total $1.2 billion, and has also become a strategic partner, with one of its directors, Ronald Fisher, joining OneWeb’s board of directors. Combined with the $500 million OneWeb raised in June 2015, the total amount gathered now stands at $1.7 billion out of an expected total cost of $2.5 billion to $3.5 billion for the full constellation of 900 small satellites. OneWeb Founder Greg Wyler told SpaceNews that thanks to SoftBank, the company has raised more from investors than originally anticipated, allowing OneWeb to forgo a third investment round.
They plan to build a factory in Florida capable of building 15 satellites per week.
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The competition heats up: OneWeb, in its effort to build a constellation of 900 satellites to provide internet services worldwide, has raised $1.2 billion.
Japan-based SoftBank invested $1 billion of the total $1.2 billion, and has also become a strategic partner, with one of its directors, Ronald Fisher, joining OneWeb’s board of directors. Combined with the $500 million OneWeb raised in June 2015, the total amount gathered now stands at $1.7 billion out of an expected total cost of $2.5 billion to $3.5 billion for the full constellation of 900 small satellites. OneWeb Founder Greg Wyler told SpaceNews that thanks to SoftBank, the company has raised more from investors than originally anticipated, allowing OneWeb to forgo a third investment round.
They plan to build a factory in Florida capable of building 15 satellites per week.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
OneWeb website is at
http://oneweb.world/#home
Check them out.
–It’s a huge conglomeration of All The Usual Suspects; Qualcomm, Virgin Group, Intelsat, Grupo Salinas, Airbus, Hughes, Coca Cola, to name but a few.
It sounds like capitalism but….. not quite.
Softbank is the Japanese investor which together with Trump after the election said they’ve now decided to invest $50bn in the US. Great that space industry is on their buying list this Christmas.
LocalFluff–
Softbank announced that “investment” 6-9 months ago.
>We have 90 million, work-ready people, not in the labor-force. So… we need to create the Conditions for 89,950,000 more jobs, and that won’t be done “one deal at a time.”
Go to the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) website at
https://www.sec.gov/index.htm
and look for the EDGAR search-box to read Softbank’s various filing’s.
tangential–
I see DJT has met with Carlos Slim. (Mexican Phone Company Billionaire) Slim will explain to Trump & Rinse why the Feds spending $4 billion a year on Free Cell Phones (which Slim supplies), is actually a Great Idea and will continue to Make America Great, Yet Once Again.
>>If the “Life-Line Program” (aka Obama-Phones) isn’t killed instantly 100%, it will never go away. (Started at $400/million/year, is now $4 billion/year.)