Rohit Jha (36) is the co-founder and CEO of Transcelestial.
Courtesy of Rohit Jha
Rohit Jha calls himself a “big nerd.”
At an early age he developed a deep love for computers, space and, ultimately, science fiction.
Jha spent much of his childhood and adolescence coding games on a hand-me-down computer, observing the stars through a telescope on the roof of his school, and reading the works of science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov.
Today, the 36-year-old is co-founder and CEO of Transcelestial, a deep space technology and communications startup that aims to make the Internet more accessible by developing and deploying a network of lasers between cell towers, street-level poles and more, creating a fiber-optic communications network.
Rohit Jha with Transcelestial band members.
Courtesy of Rohit Jha
The company has raised approximately $24 million to date and is backed by brands including Airbus Ventures, Wavemaker and In-Q-Tel.
For the love of science fiction
Jha grew up in Jamshedpur, a small city that has since become a major industrial center in India.
While still in high school, Jha was selected to participate in the highly selective National Physics Olympiad program, where he learned more advanced concepts such as general relativity, string theory, and quantum mechanics.
After graduating from high school, he moved to Singapore to attend Nanyang Technological University on a scholarship, where he studied electrical and electronics engineering. Jha says he worked on several major projects during this time, including Singapore's first space program, as well as the country's first satellite.
Jha's love of science fiction and aerospace engineering gained momentum during his high school and university days.
Journey to Fix the Internet
After graduating from university in 2011, Jha entered banking and worked in high-frequency trading at Royal Bank of Canada. While working in banking, Jha discovered the problem.
“In banking, I finally understood why the Internet sucks,” he said. “As part of my role in e-commerce, you're really trying to optimize latency between shopping centers around the world. “It's a big deal how fast you can get from New York to Chicago, from Chicago to London… and who has the fastest delays.”
He discovered that most of the world's Internet comes from a vast network of fiber-optic cables laid on the ocean floor that transmit data between continents around the world. Laying these undersea cables can cost billions of dollars, and they often develop bottlenecks and break due to ocean activity, he added.
It's worth noting that because the process of giving people access to the Internet can be very expensive, the companies responsible for providing people with connectivity are often motivated to “only invest in those cities where the opportunities for return on investment are high enough,” he said. .
“So it really comes down to an economic game, and the incentives are wildly divergent across the board,” Jha said. While “tier one” cities like San Francisco and New York get priority, less developed markets or remote villages may not get the same access.
“There will never be a future where there is no internet unless we are destroyed… and data will always grow,” meaning the gap between the haves and have-nots will also continue to widen unless a sea rises and says it needs to change the way Internet sharing.
Banking on yourself
After a few years of work, Jha realized that banking was not for him.
“I was lucky because it was a hand-picked team across the company and some of the best people I've ever worked with in my life – impressive people – but… there were many times I felt like I was a cog in the entire organization,” he said.
Moreover, having grown up with a love of science fiction, he found it painted a kind of “utopia” — “a world where I was sure we'd have transportation to the moon and Mars by the time I grew up.”
“I realized that we still live in a world where we were promised a future (that wasn't) provided, and it was just very frustrating and I just didn't want to continue to live in that,” he said.
Jha finally decided to leave when he realized, “You have one life and (I) prefer to work on things where (I) sit on the edge of the unknown.” So in 2015, he quit his job, took a year off to travel, and started Transcelestial shortly thereafter.
Big goals
In December 2016, Transcelestial was founded after Jha met its co-founder Mohammad Danesh through a Singapore-based startup accelerator called Entrepreneur First.
“I met Danesh on my first day and he was exactly the person I needed,” Jha said. “So we went to (an Indian restaurant) and had an early biryani meal, we kept talking, we had a second biryani meal, we kept talking, and it finally became clear that we wanted to start this company together.”
Transcelestial was founded in 2016 by co-founders Rohit Jha and Mohammad Danesh.
Courtesy of Rohit Jha
After long discussions, it was decided to create “the largest possible telecommunications company in space over the next few decades,” Jha said. They decided the best way was to use lasers.
“Lasers can carry data… for decades this laser has been operating in fiber optic cables and that is what powers our homes, offices, 5g data centers and everything,” he said. “What we did was… we took the laser out of the fiber optic and ran it wirelessly.”
“That means it gets the speed of fiber, but at the same time the economics of price and the speed of deployment of wireless technologies. By setting up the Internet not just for a home, but even a village, we can dramatically reduce years and months to days and weeks or a city,” Jha said.
Transcelestial's Centauri provides wireless laser communications.
Courtesy of Rohit Jha
In 2024, the company said, it will deploy its lasers at the Coachella and Stagecoach music festivals through a shoebox-sized device called Centauri, providing better internet access to T-Mobile users attending the festivals. statement.
In addition to its terrestrial telecommunications activities, Transcelestial is focused on a larger goal – space.
The company's goal is to develop “a constellation of small satellites placed in low Earth orbit, enabling (its) laser network to beam not only onto cities, but also upwards to connect continents around the world,” the company says statement.
“We can effectively knock a fiber-optic cable out of orbit using lasers. Instead of a cable, it will be a laser reaching the city and it will become the backbone of the entire city,” Jha said.
Ultimately, Jha and his team want to build the next frontier.
“As humanity develops, we need communication and high-speed connectivity in space,” he said. Transcelestial is working to “expand into deep space and build the infrastructure needed… for automation and perhaps even human settlement over the next few decades.”
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