Dr Greg Hyslop, CTO, The Boeing Company; Maureen Dougherty, President, Boeing Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific; Dr Alex Grant, CEO and Co-Founder, Myriota; Dr David Haley, CTO and Co-Founder, Myriota. Image provided by Boeing.
Adelaide-based nanosatellite startup Myriota has raised $15 million in capital, receiving backing from Boeing HorizonX ventures in their first investment outside the United States.
The announcement represents a major windfall for Myriota amidst a crescendo of investment and attention on Australian space-focused startups, following state government Future Fund grant awards to Myriota and Fleet Space Technologies, and NASA planning future launches at Equatorial Launch Australia Arnhem Space Complex, which will soon be operational.
Founded in 2015, Myriota builds on the work of its founders with the University of South Australia’s Institute for Telecommunications Research. Applications for their highly energy-efficient, go-anywhere communications technologies include black box type recorders for Australian Army soldiers, water tank monitors for farmers, asset tracking and environmental monitoring.
“We formed Myriota to solve a major connectivity problem: hundreds of millions of devices that need to communicate but don’t have cost-effective, battery-friendly networks to do so,” said Myriota CEO, Alex Grant.
“The scale of this investment, with strong domestic venture capital leadership and strategic participation by global investors is significant for Myriota, and our vision to deliver IoT connectivity for everyone, everywhere.”
Grant said that Myriota plans to accelerate its growth by launching more satellites, delivering large-scale IoT deployments, and expanding its global operations, establishing new sales and customer support offices in North America and Asia. Myriota anticipates adding at least 50 new staff; most of whom will be based at the startup’s South Australian headquarters.
Myriota CTO Dr. David Haley and CEO Dr. Alex Grant. Image provided by Myriota.
