The American startup Endeavor Optical Networks has raised $10.75 million. The seed round of investments was led by General Catalyst and a16z funds. The company plans to launch a satellite network for data transmission between continents. The new technology uses a laser beam instead of underwater fiber optic cables. Founders Charlie Horowitz and Tyler Presser created this project in the spring. The future network will combine twenty vehicles in low-Earth orbit. Each satellite will receive special optical terminals for receiving signals. The developers expect to provide a channel bandwidth of 2.4 Tbit/s. Existing demo systems reach speeds of only a few gigabits. The funds received will be used to equip the laboratory and hire engineers.

The main technical obstacle remains atmospheric distortion and dense clouds. Engineers solve this problem through careful selection of ground stations. The location of the receivers will take into account the current meteorological data of the regions. The launch of the first demonstration satellite is expected at the end of 2027. The device will be able to deliver a signal to Earth at speeds up to 1000 Gbps. The startup intends to buy ready-made satellite chassis from Apex Space. The target audience of the project are large hyperscalers and artificial intelligence laboratories. The management will select routes with high cost of traditional network traffic. The company will sell exclusively dedicated channel capacity to customers. The technical team was reinforced by former specialists from Google and Amazon.

The startup does not work alone in the field of laser data transmission technologies. Blue Origin is simultaneously developing a large-scale TeraWave network. This project involves the launch of more than five thousand satellites into orbit. The Blue Origin system will be able to provide transfer speeds of up to 6 Tbps. The competitor's ambitions look much broader than the proposed concept. However, the timing of the deployment of such a large fleet remains very remote. Endeavor Optical Networks' strategy relies on a quick market entry. A small grouping of devices will allow commercial operation to begin much earlier. Industry publications previously predicted the imminent appearance of full-fledged space data centers. Other companies are also testing laser energy transfer from space.