Telecommunications and internet group SoftBank has agreed to invest about $500m in US-based satellite broadband provider OneWeb, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, citing a person familiar with the details.
OneWeb intends to launch a series of satellites beginning in 2018 that will provide LTE, 3G and wifi internet coverage to currently underserved areas.
The company intends to start supplying internet to Alaskan users in 2019 and eventually plans to have some 900 satellites in orbit that will connect to user terminals on earth.
The size of the investment could potentially change, according to sources, but OneWeb maintains it wants SoftBank, which invested $1bn in the company in December 2016 as part of a $1.2bn round that included fellow corporates, to remain a minority investor.
Aerospace group Airbus, conglomerates Virgin Group and Bharti Enterprises, satellite service providers Hughes Network Systems and Intelsat, semiconductor technology producer Qualcomm, cable and internet services firm Totalplay and beverage producer Coca-Cola also backed the 2016 round.
OneWeb had preliminarily lined up a merger with publicly-listed Intelsat earlier this year, only for the deal to fall through in May. SoftBank had planned to invest $1.7bn in the merged company, in a deal that would have given it a 39.9% stake.
Intelsat had previously joined Airbus, Bharti, Coca-Cola, Hughes Network Systems, Totalplay and existing investors Qualcomm and Virgin to provide $500m for OneWeb in 2015.