Conference Update – Downlink 13

Conference proceedings will be made available very soon! If you’ve purchased them or were a conference attendee, expect an email from us with instructions on how to access the audio and slides from the 2018 sessions.

SATELLITE 2018’s 2nd Annual Startup Space entrepreneur pitch contest was a tremendous success! Produced in partnership with the Space Frontier Foundation, the competition put 20 entrepreneurs on stage in front of more than a dozen investors and industry leaders for a chance to win guaranteed meetings with investors, free full-access admission to industry events and interviews in Via Satellite magazine.

Each contestant was placed in four groups of five and asked to provide a five-minute pitch to a unique group of investors. The contestant with the highest overall score in each group was recognized as the group winner and the highest overall score of the group winners was recognized as our grand prize winner.

The winners of our groups were announced at the SATELLITE 2018 Awards Celebration and Reception on Wednesday, March 14. The group winners were:

GROUP A – Colby Tunick, Director of Government Affairs, Voyager Space Systems
GROUP B – Raz Tamir, CEO, NSLComm
GROUP C – Dan Ceperley, CEO, LeoLabs
GROUP D – Mike Lawton, CEO, Oxford Space Systems

And the grand prize winner was… Dan Ceperley, CEO of LeoLabs! LeoLabs’ mission is to secure low Earth orbit (LEO) with SaaS-based services built on its global network of phased-array radars. Since its founding in 2016, LeoLabs has provided commercial satellite operators, space and regulatory agencies, and defense organizations with information on orbital debris and satellites. Through its SaaS platform, LeoLabs offers the first commercial solution for SSA and collision avoidance, and is committed to preserving and serving the growing LEO economy. LeoLabs is a venture-funded company based in Menlo Park, California.

The group winners of the other three groups, Colby, Raz, and Mike, will automatically be invited back to SATELLITE 2019 to compete in a winners group at next year’s competition. We’ll be keeping in touch with the winners and other contestants throughout the year, and posting videos of the event and contestant interviews very soon. Stay tuned for links and more on www.satshow.com!

Thank you to all our sponsors who helped make this happen!

Event Sponsor: Ball Aerospace
Partner Sponsors: Harvard Business School Aerospace Alumni Group, Ideanco, Space Frontier Foundation
Prize & Contest Sponsors: Space Angels Network, Xfund, Ubiquity Ventures, MoonshotX and Astia