Low-power sensor-to-satellite network startup raises funds
The company’s Doppler Multichannel Spread Spectrum (DMSS) technology – where communication is direct from the endpoint to the satellite constellation anywhere on earth in real-time and with no gateways required – is designed to enable low-cost, global, indoor tracking and monitoring of billions of assets. The revolutionary communication system and chip level technology, says the company, is required for simple, global, outdoor and indoor low-cost connectivity that will allow low-power wide area (LPWA) connections to scale into the billions.
“Others that have launched satellites are not on a technical path to scale to billions of connections and they will largely be limited to high value, low-volume endpoints historically associated with satellite connectivity,” says Ted Myers, Founder and CEO of Totum Labs. “Only Totum’s DMSS technology can go head-to-head with the cellular industry for LPWA connectivity and provide a robust and cost-effective connectivity experience for a massive number of endpoint connections across a wide variety of industry use cases.”
The investment round was co-led by Heroic Ventures and Space Capital, with participation from existing investors, including Qualcomm Co-founder Dr. Andrew Viterbi and new strategic investor Qamcom.
Qualcomm Co-founder Dr. Andrew Viterbi says, “I’ve closely followed LPWA technologies for more than a decade, and I believe DMSS is the right answer for global connectivity on a massive scale.”
Matt Robinson, Founder and Managing Partner of Heroic Ventures says, “Totum has a dominant waveform with an unparalleled link budget that positions the company to unlock the massive LPWA asset tracking and monitoring market. The Totum team has unmatched LPWA communications technical expertise and we are thrilled to support them.”
Tom Ingersoll, Managing Director of Space Capital adds, “We see Totum’s deep communications expertise and DMSS technology as highly differentiated from other players who come to the market as a pure satellite industry orientation.”
The latest funding follows the tape out of the company’s DMSS 3990 Endpoint Device through Orca Systems, the issuance of four foundational patents, and strategic partnerships with wireless and IoT product development and specialist service provider Qamcom and others. The DMSS 3990 is a highly integrated low-power sensor-to-satellite (LP-S2S) system on a chip (SoC) ASIC that includes a DMSS modem, RF functionality, baseband and application CPUs, and provides for efficient integrated power regulation (for multi-year battery life) in a small/low cost package using the Global Foundries 22DFX process.
The company has said that it is looking to launch an eventual 25 satellites by 2022 to build a worldwide network that can transmit low data-rate messages with the unlicensed 2.4 GHz band used for Wi-Fi when on the ground. The chip that companies will use in their devices is expected to cost around $4 – inexpensive enough to get it into lower-cost consumer devices.
For more, see the company’s white paper: “DMSS LPS2S to Connect Billions of Endpoints.”
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