Oso Semiconductor Raises $5.2M to Advance Satellite Communications with New Beamforming Chipsets

Insider Brief

• Oso Semiconductor has raised $5.2 million in a seed funding round led by Engine Ventures and supported by Entrada Ventures, Berkeley SkyDeck, and J-Ventures.
• The funding will go toward advancing the comapny’s development of power-efficient chipsets for satellite communications, 5G, and radar applications and support the company’s work on pre-production beamforming chipsets and evaluation systems aimed at meeting growing demand in the satellite industry.
• Image credit: Oso Semiconductor

Oso Semiconductor announced it has raised $5.2 million in a seed funding round to advance its development of power-efficient chipsets for satellite communications (SATCOM), 5G, and radar applications. The round, led by Engine Ventures and supported by Entrada Ventures, Berkeley SkyDeck, and J-Ventures, will support the company’s work on pre-production beamforming chipsets and evaluation systems aimed at meeting growing demand in the satellite industry.

The company’s novel chip design targets a significant challenge within SATCOM and radar systems: the high cost and power consumption of phased array systems with electrically steerable antennas (ESAs). These antennas offer superior performance over traditional parabolic designs, enhancing bandwidth, signal quality, and the ability to track multiple moving targets. However, the expense and energy demands of ESA chipsets have hindered their adoption, particularly in satellite payloads, which are expected to represent an $11.3 billion market by 2026.

Dr. Matthew Anderson, founder and CEO of Oso Semiconductor, highlighted that existing ESA solutions are not cost-effective. “Our novel chip design will enable products to provide up to 4x improvement in efficiency compared to existing ESAs, and allow manufacturers and integrated satellite operators to put more antennas on an access point while consuming less power,” Anderson said. This improvement means that more data can be transmitted, and operators can generate higher revenue, making it a valuable solution for the growing SATCOM sector.

The company’s patent-pending beamforming technology, featuring a unique Combiner-First™ architecture, simplifies chip design, reducing the number of required amplifiers. This translates to substantial cost and power savings for satellite communications and other systems operating at high frequencies above 6 GHz, including 5G and radar.

Reed Sturtevant, General Partner at Engine Ventures, expressed confidence in the company’s potential. “Oso Semiconductor’s cost- and power-effective microchips bring unprecedented efficiency and simplicity to phased array systems, and have the potential to dramatically accelerate the communication and sensing landscape,” he said.