OneWeb said it raised USD 1.2 billion during its latest funding round, led by Japan's Softbank with USD 1 billion, as well as existing investors. OneWeb said the money will be used to support its technological development and the construction of a high volume satellite production facility, in Exploration Park, Florida.
The investment transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of next year, subject to the satisfaction of certain customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. In connection with the investment, SoftBank director Ronald Fisher will join OneWeb's board of directors.
Existing investors in OneWeb include Qualcomm, Airbus Group, Bharti Enterprises, Hughes Network Systems, a subsidiary of EchoStar., Intelsat, The Coca-Cola Company, the Virgin Group, and Totalplay, a Grupo Salinas Company.
OneWeb said the the facility will be capable of producing 15 satellites per week. The investment is expected to create nearly 3,000 new engineering, manufacturing and supporting jobs in the US over the next four years. The money will also support OneWeb’s project to provide affordable high-speed internet services, including all unconnected school in the world by 2022, and consumer broadband, connected cars, mobile backhaul and the Internet of Things. OneWeb will begin production at the new manufacturing facility in Exploration Park, Florida, from 2018.
OneWeb plans to design and build a constellation starting with 720 low earth orbit (LEO) satellites. With more than 10 Tbps of new capacity and user terminals containing embedded LTE, 3G, 2G and Wi-Fi, the OneWeb system is expected to bring serve new coverage areas at a lower cost, across the US and around the world.
