Iridium to Acquire Alternative PNT Provider Satelles

Iridium Communications has announced an agreement to acquire Satelles, a provider of satellite-based services to secure and enhance navigation systems such as GPS.

Using affordable hardware without outdoor antennas, Satelles’ Satellite Time and Location solution will improve timing systems for 5G base stations, data centers and other digital infrastructure, Iridium said.

According to Iridium, key industries such as telecommunications and financial services depend on “hundreds of millions of data processing and storage servers” worldwide, which require time synchronization and location data. The Iridium STL solution inherited from the acquisition is expected to optimize and protect such servers.

The company said it will work to optimize STL’s size and cost to build toward a more accessible solution that can be integrated with consumer devices, autonomous systems and other products.

Iridium CEO Matt Desch, a 4×24 member and 2024 Wash100 winner, commented that acquiring Satelles aligns with a prevailing strategy to provide use cases only possible through his company’s satellite network.

Satelles CEO Dr. Michael O’Connor will transition to lead Iridium’s new STL business, which is projected to generate over $100 million in annual service revenue by 2030.

Iridium holds a 20 percent ownership stake in Satelles and will spend $115 million to purchase the remaining 80 percent.