Singapore and Herndon, Va. 8 December 2021 – ST Engineering announced that its Corporate Venture Capital unit, ST Engineering Ventures Pte Ltd led a US$30m (€26.50m) Series A round in Israel-based hiSky Ltd., a developer and provider of affordable and agile satellite Internet of Things (IoT) networks and solutions, with participation from SDF (Strategic Development Fund), the investment arm of Tawazun Holding, and hiSky’s existing shareholders.
The investment in hiSky enables ST Engineering’s satellite communications business, ST Engineering iDirect, to leverage the former’s cost-effective and easy-to-install IoT network. This comprises the Smartellite satellite terminals and cloud-based network management system (NMS), which are complementary and integrated into existing ST Engineering iDirect’s hub stations and can be quickly deployed in current ST Engineering iDirect satellite networks.
hiSky has created its own low-cost and easy to install Smartellite satellite terminals that can transmit and receive IoT/Machine-to-Machine data. This eliminates the need to build an IoT infrastructure from scratch, which significantly reduces the cost of market entry.
Its state-ofthe-art, electronically steerable phased array antenna operates well in mobile and remote environments, making it highly attractive to customers in industries such as maritime, logistics and utilities, among others. Further, its cloud-based NMS provides end users with an overview of the status of their terminals in the field to enhance ease of operability of the overall IoT network. Importantly, these terminals are designed to meet the requirements of LEO satellites, which are advanced new satellites that will be launched in the next decade, to buffer customers with a future-proofed solution that will evolve with their connectivity demands.
“Analysts forecast that the satellite IoT market growth will total US$1.1 billion (€0.97 billion) in revenue by 2027. Therefore, enabling our customers’ growth with an effective IoT solution is key to our strategy,” says Low Ka Hoe, president, satellite communications at ST Engineering.
“This investment allows us to jointly offer hiSky’s innovative and robust IoT satellite terminals with ST Engineering iDirect’s extensive hub and network management solutions, providing our customers a validated, future-oriented IoT solution that leverages their existing infrastructure. The flexible service enablement options will help to reduce our customers’ upfront costs and minimise operational complexities associated with building and launching their own IoT solutions, thereby speeding their time to market.”
“hiSky is both proud and delighted to welcome ST Engineering Ventures and SDF as investors,” continues Shahar Kravitz, hiSky’s co-founder and CEO. “ST Engineering iDirect has been a strategic partner of hiSky for two years and we see their investment in hiSky as a natural step towards continued, rapid growth in our satellite IoT solutions across all verticals and industries.
We have no doubt that hiSky’s satellite IoT technology, combined with ST Engineering iDirect’s capabilities, will bring great value to customers in reducing their costs and shortening their time to market. We thank our new investment partners for this vote of confidence in our technology, vision and business plans.”
With offices in Singapore, San Francisco, U.S., and Tel Aviv, Israel, ST Engineering’s Corporate Venture Capital unit scouts for and invests in promising technology start-ups in high growth areas such as robotics, autonomous technology, data analytics, cybersecurity, IoT, Cloud, Connectivity and other emerging technologies. It aims to build successful, collaborative relationships with start-ups, combining technologies and expertise to co-create breakthrough solutions while enabling their access to the Group’s global business ecosystems, expertise and resources.
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