Photo: Mangata Networks

Mangata Networks has closed a $33 million Series A funding round to advance its plans for a satellite and edge computing network. The round, announced Tuesday, was led by Playground Global. 

Mangata Networks was founded in February of 2020 and is led by Brian Holz, former CTO of O2b Networks and CEO of OneWeb Satellites. The company plans to deploy satellites in Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) and Medium-Earth Orbit (MEO), along with micro data centers. Mangata is developing technology to connect micro data centers over satellite, hosting cloud service platforms to extend connectivity into localized 5G, IoT, and Wi-Fi networks on a global basis.

The company plans to deploy initial community networks as early as 2023, prior to launch of its initial satellites. It plans to launch eight HEO satellites in 2024 and subsequently launch 24 MEO satellites for global coverage. 

Global investors include Temasek, ktsat, Scottish Enterprise, Promus Ventures through its Orbital Ventures Fund, and MetaVC Partners also participated. 

“Mangata is founded by a dream team that substantially designed and implemented the O3b and OneWeb NGSO satellite constellations,” said Jory Bell, general partner at Playground Global. “The Mangata system represents a ‘goldilocks’ architecture that provides the best of GEO and LEO offerings with a highly configurable modern HEO/MEO constellation that can be incrementally built out while generating real revenue from day one of first deployment.”