Houlihan Lokey Advises Satelles

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that Satelles, Inc., has been acquired by Iridium Communications (Iridium). Houlihan Lokey served as the exclusive financial advisor to Satelles. The transaction closed on April 1, 2024.

Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, with offices in Redwood City and Folsom, California, as well as Longmont, Colorado, Satelles was acquired by Iridium, instantly making the company the leader in delivering highly secure satellite-based time and location services that complement and protect GPS and other GNSS-reliant systems. The service, now known as Iridium® Satellite Time and Location (STL), is an easy-to-adopt, highly secure solution that increases the efficiency and reliability of timing systems for digital infrastructure, such as 5G base stations, data centers, and other critical infrastructure, and protects against GNSS vulnerabilities. The STL service utilizes the stronger broadcast paging channels of the Iridium satellite constellation to deliver precise timing information, which provides truly global, secure time and location signals that are 1,000 times more powerful than GNSS constellations. The service is resilient to regional GNSS outages, works inside buildings, and is being used today to secure digital infrastructure for financial markets, governments, and major corporations.

Iridium is the only mobile voice and data satellite communications network that spans the entire globe. Iridium enables connections between people, organizations, and assets to and from anywhere—in real time. Together with its ecosystem of partner companies, Iridium delivers an innovative and rich portfolio of reliable solutions for markets that require truly global communications. STL now forms the core of a new positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) business line of Iridium, led by former Satelles CEO Dr. Michael O’Connor.

Iridium is assuming all rights to the Satelles patent portfolio and anticipates Iridium STL services to generate more than $100 million in service revenue per year, by 2030, and additional revenue from equipment and engineering. A long-standing investor in Satelles, Iridium had an ownership stake of around 20% from three previous investments in the company.