SpaceX Competitor OneWeb Is Reportedly Bankrupt

To revisit this article, select My⁠ ⁠Account, then View saved stories. There’s a new headstone in the satellite internet graveyard today. This one belongs to OneWeb, which, according to a report in the Financial Times, is preparing to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy protections and lay off most of its 500 staff. The report states that OneWeb began preparing to file for bankruptcy after it failed to secure $2 billion in new funding from the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, its largest investor.

OneWeb did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment. As of Friday afternoon, OneWeb had not officially released any information about the bankruptcy on its press page or social media channels. Founded in 2012 by tech entrepreneur Greg Wyler, OneWeb was one of a handful of companies including SpaceX and Amazon that are racing to build giant constellations of high-speed internet satellites. OneWeb planned to operate a fleet of at least 650 satellites to blanket the entire Earth with broadband service and had raised nearly $3.

5 billion from large investors like the Virgin Group, Qualcomm, and Airbus. OneWeb planned to begin offering regional satellite internet service by the end of the year and to roll out global coverage shortly thereafter. But the world had other plans. The coronavirus pandemic and resulting market turbulence undermined the negotiations between OneWeb and SoftBank for $2 billion in funding, people familiar with the matter told WIRED.

“Venture finance is a high-risk game,” says Janice Starzyk, the vice president of commercial space at the analytics firm Bryce Space and Technology. “Right now a lot of finance companies are going to focus on their highest-priority investments, and SoftBank made the decision that this is not one of them. ” The news of OneWeb’s planned bankruptcy filing comes less than a week after the company launched its most recent batch of 34 internet satellites atop an Arianespace rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It was the company’s second launch of the year and brought the total number of OneWeb satellites in orbit to 74.

It’s too early to tell what will become of OneWeb’s assets as it moves through bankruptcy protection, people familiar with the proceedings told WIRED. OneWeb will retain enough employees to continue operating the satellites already in orbit, but most of the company’s 500 staffers will be laid off. As for the satellites, there aren’t enough in orbit to provide anything close to global or even regional coverage.