The Skygate Technologies team. Photo: Skygate

Skygate Technologies, a Japanese Ground Station as a Service (GSaaS) startup, has received seed investments from the Keio University-based venture capital firm Keio Innovation Initiative. The funding amount was not disclosed. 

The company was founded in February and develops GSaaS utilizing high-speed wireless technology and software radio. According to an Aug. 25 announcement, Skygate Technologies will use this seed funding for its first entirely cloud-based ground station in Japan and the cloud ground station platform, Skygate, planned to start in 2021. 

Skygate aims to support high-data-rate communications of more than 2 Gbps and be able to integrate with Amazon‘s Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google‘s Google Cloud  Platform (GCP) and other cloud providers so satellite operators and their data analyzers can easily transmit and process data. The company is targeting Earth Observation (EO) companies as customers. 

“Earth Observation data business is now experiencing the biggest change since its emergence. The value of observation data is skyrocketing with growing world’s uncertainty,” said Takanori Awatsu, CEO of Skygate Technologies. “Skygate seamlessly connects space and cloud business areas. We will realize the world where everyone can utilize the truth-on the-ground for their businesses.”