SoftBank Is Back With New Investment in Satellite Start-Up OneWeb | Barron’s
>0;if(“function”!=typeof r)throw new TypeError(“predicate must be a function”);for(var n=arguments[1],i=0;i // Dynamic Survey additional styling var surveyStyles = document.createElement(‘style’); surveyStyles.type = ‘text/css’; surveyStyles.setAttribute(‘data-purpose’, ‘hok dynamic survey styling’); surveyStyles.innerHTML = ‘#qual_ol{border:0!important;border-radius:0!important;background-color:#f6f6f6!important;box-shadow:0 0 5px rgba(0,0,0,.2)!important}.qual_ol_btn_dot,.qual_ol_hr,.qual_x_close{display:none!important}.qual_ol_send_box{float:none!important}.qual_ol_send{max-width:none!important;width:100%!important;border-radius:0!important;background-color:#1C4384!important;height:inherit!important;padding:10px 5px!important}.qual_ol_ans_text{margin-bottom:0!important;border-color:#a0a0a0!important}.qual_ol_qtitle{line-height:1.4!important;margin-bottom:15px!important;color:#454545!important}.qual_ol_btm{padding-top:5px!important}.qual_ol_logo{max-height:25px!important;margin:5px 0 10px!important}’; document.head.append(surveyStyles); ]]> We’ve detected you are on Internet Explorer. For the best Barrons.com experience, please update to a modern browser. Text size The satellite communications start-up OneWeb on Friday announced a $400 million financing round, boosting its total financing to $1.4 billion since the company emerged from bankruptcy in November. And the surprise is that the lead investor is SoftBank Group, which played a role in the company’s chapter 11 last year. OneWeb is building a constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites, or LEOs, for broadband communications services, competing with Elon Musk-controlled SpaceX. Just this week, OneWeb reduced the size of the total number of satellites in the constellation to about 7,000, down from an originally anticipated 48,000. Last March, OneWeb filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after SoftBank—the company’s single largest investor—refused to add to its previous $2 billion investment in the company. That decision came at a difficult moment for SoftBank, which was still under intense scrutiny over the late 2019 collapse of a planned IPO for the short-term real-estate rental company WeWork, in which SoftBank was the largest investor.
Jan. 15, 2021 11:45 am ET
The satellite communications start-up OneWeb announced another financing round.
Courtesy OneWeb
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In October, a federal bankruptcy court in New York approved a plan for the company to emerge from chapter 11 protection. The company received $1 billion in financing from a consortium of the U.K. government and the Indian-based investment firm Bharti Global. The company at the time also named a new CEO—former Thomson Reuters chief operating officer Neil Masterson.
On Friday, the company announced additional funding from SoftBank and Hughes Network Systems, a unit of EchoStar (SATS). In December, Hughes had announced a three-year $250 million contract to provide ground system technology to OneWeb. As part of that agreement, Hughes agreed to invest $50 million, which implies a $350 million investment by SoftBank. The investment was made by SoftBank Group itself, and not its SoftBank Vision Fund venture portfolio.
SoftBank declined further comment on Friday.
Write to Eric J. Savitz at eric.savitz@barrons.com
SoftBank Is Back With New Investment in Satellite Start-Up OneWeb
The satellite communications start-up OneWeb on Friday announced a $400 million financing round, boosting its total financing to $1.
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