QOSMIC, a Bengaluru-based deep-tech company building optical communications infrastructure for space, raised a $3.33 million seed funding round led by Accel and Prosus, with South Park Commons and ARTPARK among the first institutional investors, alongside angel investor Manish Jain. The funding accelerates QOSMIC's work to build the data layer of the space economy, the network that carries information between satellites, orbital data centres, and the ground network.
Founded in 2025 by Shreyaans Jain, Rohit Ramakrishnan, and Aloke Kumar, QOSMIC is building laser-based communication systems that enable satellites to transmit significantly larger volumes of data than conventional radio-frequency systems. The company develops both optical ground stations on Earth and optical communication terminals for satellites, creating a complete end-to-end optical communications stack.
As the number of satellites in orbit continues to grow, the industry's ability to move data back to Earth is becoming the critical bottleneck. The satellites of the future are being served by the network infrastructure of the past. A single Earth-observation satellite can image an entire country in one pass, then delete most of it, because the radio link is too narrow to send it down before the next orbit. Modern spacecraft generate terabytes a day, yet still rely on radio-frequency links constrained by spectrum, congestion, and short transmission windows The emerging orbital economy will demand terabit-scale connectivity between spacecraft, orbital data centres, and Earth, a scale radio frequency systems cannot reach.
QOSMIC addresses this challenge by replacing traditional radio links with laser-based optical communications that can move data between orbit and Earth at significantly higher speeds and capacities. In less than a year since inception, the company has field-validated its complete optical communication stack over a 10-kilometre terrestrial link at Technology Readiness Level 6 (TRL6), demonstrating the full chain of pointing, acquisition, tracking, and high-speed data transfer outside a laboratory environment. QOSMIC is now preparing for in-orbit testing and its first commercial deployments.
The newly raised capital will be used to deliver operational optical ground stations and satellite terminals to international customers, scale integration, testing and manufacturing capabilities, and expand the company's engineering team across optical, mechanical, and electronics disciplines.
Speaking on the funding, Shreyaans Jain, Co-founder and CEO, QOSMIC, said, "The next decade of the space economy will be defined by data. Satellites are becoming exponentially more capable, but the infrastructure connecting them to Earth has not kept pace. We believe optical communications will become as fundamental to space infrastructure as fibre optics became to the internet. This funding enables us to accelerate that transition and build the connectivity layer that the next generation of space applications will rely on. A decade ago, a company like this would have had to be built in the US or Europe. Today, India has the capital, the manufacturing depth, and the scientific institutions to build world-class space infrastructure. We came back because this is now the right place to build it, and we will not be the last founders to make that choice."
QOSMIC's founding story mirrors a larger shift in where frontier technology gets built. All three founders left careers abroad and chose India. Shreyaans Jain gave up a PhD in quantum computing in the United States to return to Bengaluru. Rohit Ramakrishnan, who built quantum communication payloads for satellite missions in Singapore, came back to build harder things in India. Prof. Aloke Kumar returned from the United States to the Indian Institute of Science with a conviction that world-class engineering should be built at home; QOSMIC is the latest expression of that commitment.
From inception, QOSMIC has built its systems to international interoperability standards, enabling integration across satellite constellations, orbital infrastructure providers, and ground network operators worldwide.
Optical connectivity is more than a faster pipe; it changes how space infrastructure is designed. High-capacity links between satellites, orbital data centres, and ground stations turn isolated spacecraft into a network. QOSMIC is building that network.
Speaking on the announcement, Mahendran Balachandran and Pratik Agarwal, Partners at Accel, said, “Satellites are collecting more than they can ever send back to Earth, and most of what they see never makes it down. As computing moves into orbit, that gap only widens. QOSMIC is solving it with laser ground stations that are faster, more secure and far cheaper than today's systems. We're proud to lead their seed round.”
“The space economy of the future will only be as powerful as its ability to move data. Right now, that ability is broken. Satellites are generating terabytes every day, but not everything comes back because channels built for another era are completely choked. Laser-based optical communications is the way to unlock the bottleneck in space, and move data between orbit and Earth at speeds demanded by the next generation of applications,” said Prateek Mehta, General Partner at South Park Commons.
He continued to appreciate QOSMIC’s work, saying, “Shreyaans, Rohit, and Aloke are the team with the right mix of academic rigour, technical proficiency and entrepreneurial energy. From day minus one they have come at this problem with deep scientific rigour and ambition which is rare in the Indian ecosystem. Hence being the first investor in QOSMIC, when the product was still a vision, wasn't a difficult decision. We can't wait to see them build the connectivity layer the next generation in space runs on.”
The company's first commercial deployment is with TakeMe2Space, India's leading orbital data centre company, for the development of optical communication terminals for its MOI constellation. As orbital computing and data-intensive space applications gain momentum, optical connectivity is becoming a prerequisite rather than an enhancement.
As the space industry transitions from endeavor to an economy, QOSMIC will build the infrastructure that will enable data to move seamlessly between Space, Earth and beyond.
StartupTalky- Business News, Insights and StoriesMuskaan Kapoor
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