ST Engineering’s corporate venture capital unit invests in hiSky

ST Engineering has announced that its Corporate Venture Capital unit, ST Engineering Ventures Pte Ltd led a US$30m Series A round in Israel-based hiSky Ltd., a leading developer and provider of affordable and agile satellite Internet of Things (IoT) networks and solutions, with participation from SDF (Strategic Development Fund), the investment arm of Tawazun Holding, and hiSky’s existing shareholders.

The investment in hiSky enables ST Engineering’s satellite communications business, ST Engineering iDirect, to leverage the former’s cost-effective and easy-to-install IoT network. This comprises the Smartellite™ satellite terminals and cloud-based network management system (NMS), which are complementary and integrated into existing ST Engineering iDirect’s hub stations and can be quickly deployed in current ST Engineering iDirect satellite networks.

hiSky has created its own low-cost and easy to install Smartellite™ satellite terminals that can transmit and receive IoT/Machine-to-Machine data. This eliminates the need to build an IoT infrastructure from scratch, which significantly reduces the cost of market entry. Its state-of-the-art, electronically steerable phased array antenna operates well in mobile and remote environments, making it highly attractive to customers in industries such as maritime, logistics and utilities, among others. Further, its cloud-based NMS provides end users with an overview of the status of their terminals in the field to enhance ease of operability of the overall IoT network. Importantly, these terminals are designed to meet the requirements of LEO satellites, which are advanced new satellites that will be launched in the next decade, to buffer customers with a future-proofed solution that will evolve with their connectivity demands.

www.hiskysat.com