Rohit Jha calls himself a ‘nerd’.

He developed a deep love for computers, space, and ultimately science fiction in his early years.

Jha spent much of his childhood and adolescence programming games on a used computer, stargazing through a telescope on the roof of his school, and reading the works of science fiction writer Isaac Asimov.

Today, the 36-year-old is the co-founder and CEO of Transcelestial, a space technology and communications startup that aims to make the Internet more accessible by developing and deploying a network of lasers between cell towers, street-level poles, and more. A fiber-like communications network.

To date, the company has raised about $24 million, and is backed by names like Airbus Ventures, Wavemaker, and In-Q-Tel.

Jha grew up in Jamshedpur, a small city that has since become a major industrial center in India.

While in high school, Jha was selected to participate in the highly selective National Physics Olympiad program, which introduced him to more advanced concepts such as general relativity, string theory, and quantum mechanics.

After high school, he moved to Singapore to attend Nanyang Technological University on a scholarship, where he studied electrical and electronic engineering. During that time, Jha says he worked on several major projects, including Singapore’s first space program, as well as the country’s first indigenous project. Satellite.

Throughout his high school and college days, Jha’s love for science fiction and space engineering rose to its highest levels.

After graduating from university in 2011, Jha went into banking and worked in high-frequency trading at the Royal Bank of Canada. While working in banking, Jha discovered a problem.

“I finally realized why the Internet failed banking,” he said. “As part of my role in electronic trading, you’re really looking to improve latency between global trading centres. It’s huge how quickly you can get from New York to Chicago, from Chicago to London… and who has the fastest latency.”

He discovered that most of the world’s Internet comes from a vast network of fiber-optic cables laid across the ocean floor, which transmit data between continents globally. He said that laying these cables under the sea can cost billions of dollars, and they often lead to bottlenecks and breakage as a result of ocean activity.

In particular, because the process of getting the Internet to people can be very expensive, companies responsible for getting connectivity into people’s hands are often motivated “to invest only in those cities where they have a high enough chance of making a return on investment,” as He said. .

“So it boils down to an economic game, and incentives are wildly inconsistent across the board,” Jha said. While “tier one” cities like San Francisco or New York City get priority, less developed markets or outlying villages may not get the same access.

“There will never be a future where the Internet never exists unless we are eliminated…data will always grow,” meaning the gap between the haves and have-nots will also continue to widen, unless there is a change in how the Internet is provided, he said. .

After several years of work, Jha realized that banking was not for him.

“I was lucky, because it was the most carefully selected team in the entire company, some of the best people I’ve ever worked with in my life — very impressive people — but … there were many times where I felt like a cog in the entire organization,” he said. .

Additionally, having grown up with a love of science fiction, he said he painted a “utopia” of sorts — “a world in which I was sure that by the time I grew up, we would have transportation to the moon and Mars.”

“I realized that we still live in a world where we were promised a future [that was] “It wasn’t delivered, and that was very frustrating, and I didn’t want to continue to live through that.”

Jha finally decided to leave after realizing: “You only have one life, and [I’d] Rather, work on things where [I’m] “It sits on the edge of the unknown.” So, in 2015, he quit his job, took a year off to travel, and started Transcelestial soon after.

In December 2016, Transcelestial was created after Jha met his co-founder Muhammad Danish through a Singapore-based accelerator called Entrepreneur First.

“On the first day, I met Danish and he was exactly the person I needed,” Jha said. “So we went to [Indian restaurant]We had an early biryani meal, we continued the discussion, we had a second biryani meal, we continued the discussion, and eventually it became clear that we wanted to start this company together.”

After much discussion, they aimed to create “the largest possible communications company in space over the next few decades,” Jha said. They decided that the best way to do this would be through a laser.

“Lasers have the ability to carry data… For decades, these lasers have been running over fiber optic cables, and that’s what powers our homes, our offices, 5G data centers, everything,” he said. “What we did was we took that laser from inside the fiber and ran it wirelessly.”

“This means they get the speed of fiber, but with the price economics and speed of deployment of wireless technologies. We can dramatically reduce years and months, to days and weeks when setting up Internet not just for a home, but even for a village. Or a town,” Jha said.

In 2024, the company deployed its lasers at the Coachella and Stagecoach music festivals through its shoebox-sized device called Centauri, providing enhanced internet access to T-Mobile users attending the festivals, according to the company. statement.

In addition to its terrestrial communications business, Transcelestial has its sights set on a bigger goal: space.

The company aims to develop “a constellation of small satellites positioned in low Earth orbit, which will allow this.” [its] The laser network not only broadcasts across cities, but upwards to connect continents globally,” according to the company statement.

“What we can do is drop a fiber cable from orbit using a laser. So instead of a cable, there will be a laser coming down into the city, and that will become the backbone of the entire city,” Jha said.

Jha and his team are ultimately looking to build the next frontier.

“As humanity expands, we need high-speed communications and connectivity in deep space,” he said. Transcelestial is working to “expand into deep space and build the infrastructure needed…for automation and perhaps even for human settlements in the next two decades.”

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