Apolink, founded by 19-year-old Indian entrepreneur Onkar Singh Batra, has raised 4.3 million in an "oversubscribed" seed round at a $45 million post-money valuation. The startup, earlier known as Bifrost Orbital, is working to build a real-time connectivity network for satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). It runs on a mission to connect space to the ground.
The idea addresses a problem space companies still face today. When satellites are not in the line of sight of a ground station, they tend to go offline due to “dead zones”. While some solutions exist to reduce downtime, the problem remains partially solved. Apolink’s aim is to provide 24/7 connectivity to LEO satellites with each orbital ring designed to handle 256 users at 9.6kbps.
The issue has been growing crucial as space exploration initiatives are booming. Until now, NASA has relied on its Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) system to maintain near-continuous contact with satellites in geostationary orbit.
However, in 2022, NASA announced that it would gradually phase out TDRS and transition to commercial providers for satellite communications. Most commercial systems still use geostationary or medium Earth orbits.
Batra recognized this challenge of connectivity early on as he had developed an interest in space when he was just 14 years old. In 2022, when he was in 12th grade at a defense school in Jammu, he created India's first open-source satellite, InQube. After that, he taught space ecosystems to engineering students as a guest professor at IIT Jammu between 2022-23.
When he was working on his first satellite system, Batra recognized the problem of satellite connectivity. He identified that the existing systems fell short as they did not provide backward compatibility, requiring specific hardware to enable network access in orbit.
