Skip to main content

Transcelestial, the company building the future of Superfast Global Internet Distribution, today announced that it has closed a strategic investment of USD 2 million from Kickstart Ventures under the Ayala Corporation Technology Innovation Venture (ACTIVE) Fund’s “The Frictionless Future” investment theme.

This is the first publicly announced investment by Kickstart Ventures from the recently announced USD 180 million ACTIVE Fund which is backed by Ayala Corporation, with several of its subsidiaries participating, namely AC Energy, AC Industrials, AC Ventures, BPI, and Kickstart’s parent company, Globe Telecom. The fund seeks to invest in Series A to D startups globally and has four investment themes focused on the future of transactions and transfers, work and human capital, resource allocation and availability, and property, homes, and community life.

“The team at Kickstart have been fully aligned with our goals of solving the last mile and global bottlenecks in internet distribution. We could not have asked for a better partner to help us not only work with Globe in Philippines but also advise us on bringing our current and future products to solve some of the challenges in the archipelago nation.”, said Rohit Jha, CEO of Transcelestial

“For the ACTIVE Fund and its stakeholders, “The Frictionless Future” is one with improved digital access to goods, services, and information. We’re proud to be publicly sharing an ACTIVE Fund investment for the first time, especially that it tackles improving internet distribution, an issue that is of heightened relevance to Filipinos. As more Filipinos become reliant on internet access for their livelihood and social connections, we’re hopeful that Transcelestial will help increase Internet penetration and provide telcos and ISPs with an affordable option for 5G deployment,” says Minette Navarrete, President of Kickstart Ventures.

About CENTAURI – Replacing Cables on the Ground

CENTAURI is Transcelestial’s mass-produced network device which leverages their proprietary Wireless Laser Communication Technology to create a wireless distribution network between buildings, traditional cell towers, street-level poles and other physical infrastructure.

It is the size of a shoe-box, weighing less than 3kg and capable of delivering true fibre-like speeds to customers at fraction of the cost of traditional fibre.

There are two commercial models available – 1 Gbps Full Duplex (4G & Enterprise ready) and 10 Gbps Full Duplex (5G-ready). Higher bandwidth capabilities will be unlocked and available for order shortly.

CENTAURI is aimed at providing a rapidly deployable, affordable and high speed Last Mile Connectivity solution, especially for dense residential areas during COVID-19 period which require urgent bandwidth upgrades.

Transcelestial’s role in Philippines

Let’s start with what we all love – #statistics

  • Philippines is the Top Country in the World in terms of the number of hours spent on the Internet with 67% Internet penetration – you love & support the Internet!
  • Philippines is the Top Country in the World for mobile use & in the Top 3 for laptop, desktop and tablet use – you love your gadgets!
  • Nearly 69% of Philippines watches streaming TV content, 2 points higher than the worldwide average (beating Sweden, India and the UK) – you love your Netflix and YouTube!
  • Philippines is amongst the Top 2 countries in terms of time spent on game consoles (beating countries like China and India) – you love games!
  • Philippines is the Top Country in the World using social media but the people are also amongst the most concerned about misuse of personal data – you care about security & privacy!
  • Philippines is ahead of the world average on using digital banking and financial services (beating USA) and has the highest ownership of cryptocurrency – you care deeply about your wealth and how to grow & manage it!
  • And, Philippines had more new mobile connections activated last year than the next 10 countries combined – your telecoms are working hard in expanding coverage as fast as possible!  

But, your average download speed is only 50% of the World average on mobile and only 34% of World average on fixed connections to homes and offices. This is a major result of bottlenecks created by difficulty in bringing high speed internet backbone to dense population clusters.. The sheer number of islands adds to the problem.

During COVID-19, it is absolutely critical that the people of Philippines continue to work remotely from their homes, continuing to make a livelihood. Transcelestial is here to help telecoms, ISPs, Enterprises and the Government help bridge this shortfall.

Telcos – how can we help?

Transcelestial’s CENTAURI technology unlocks fiber-equivalent high bandwidth between 4G/5G cell towers and the telecom core network which connects back to their data centers. Using CENTAURI there are no delays caused by right of way issues and the built in automatic alignment technology makes the deployment happen within minutes. In addition, there are no spectrum charges and no extra digging costs for laying fiber cables. As a result, you can get to 5G revenues faster by rolling out a transmission network with a reduced total cost and time of ownership as compared to fiber.

ISPs – how can we help?

Our CENTAURI technology allows you to bypass the expensive fiber optics costs to customer buildings and premises. Create your wireless laser rings and mesh between your customers’ buildings and infrastructure to deliver the best low latency and high speed distribution to homes and offices. This allows you to focus on your niche faster – whether it is supporting gamers, helping bring connectivity to the underprivileged or getting enterprises connected to the cloud!

Enterprises – how can we help?

Our CENTAURI technology when used in conjunction with your selected telecom or ISP partner will deliver the best experience to your business use case at a significantly more affordable cost to your business in the difficult COVID-19 period. Ask your telecom or ISP to upgrade your connection to #lasercomms today!

Government – how can we help?

Our CENTAURI technology helps you bring low cost ultra high speed audiovisual and data capabilities to schools, hospitals, government offices and population centers far away from Tier 1 cities. In the long term, we wish to work with the government in using our upcoming ultra high speed satellite based constellation to establish a ultra high speed data highway with the rest of the world.

About Transcelestial

Transcelestial is building a space laser network to deliver a step-change in internet connectivity globally. This will be the fastest way to bring the rest of the world up on the bandwidth and connectivity curve. Right now, we are using the same technology on the ground as a  “wireless fibre optics” – with a much lower TCO than fibre for telcos and enterprises.

Transcelestial has won numerous industry and global awards such as SPIFFY San Andreas Award for Most Disruptive Technology by Telecom Council, Forbes 30 Under 30 to our CTO Dr. Mohammad Danesh, Edge 35 Under 35 to our CEO Rohit Jha, The Most Ambitious Start-Up in Photonics Award by The Optical Society (OSA), etc.

Founded in Dec 2016, the Transcelestial team is located in Singapore and is backed by major investors such as Wavemaker Partners, EDBI, Airbus Ventures, Cap Vista, SEEDS Capital (Enterprise SG), Entrepreneur First, Partech Ventures, 500 Startups, AirTree Ventures, Tekton Ventures, SGInnovate, SparkLabs Global Ventures, Michael Seibel (CEO of Y-Combinator, Founder of Twitch.tv), Charles Songhurst (Microsoft’s former Head of Corporate Strategy) and other investors.

For more information, visit our website www.transcelestial.com for more OR follow our twitter channel @trans_celestial.

For sales enquiries, please contact [email protected]

About Kickstart Ventures

Kickstart Ventures, a subsidiary of Globe Telecom, is a leading investment firm in Philippines now managing a recently raised USD 180 million ACTIVE fund. The fund is backed by Ayala Corporation and its subsidiaries. Kickstart Ventures aims to support global companies and founders working on companies with the following themes – The Frictionless Future, From Automation to Augmentation, Smarter Living and A World of Plenty.

For more information, visit https://www.kickstart.ph/