CEO Chaitanya “Chet” Kanojia announced this week that Starry has completed its special-purpose acquisition with FirstMark Horizon Acquisition Corp. and is now listed on the New York Stock Exchange, eight years after the firm was founded to alter the way home internet is delivered.
The Boston-based internet service provider’s strategy involves employing millimetre waves to transmit high-speed internet over the air. Starry’s revolutionary technology beams the internet to your home, but because most people live in close proximity, the business uses “active phased arrays,” which essentially group numerous antennas together to beam the internet to multiple locations at once.
It advertises its internet service, which costs around $50 per month and includes a free WiFi router and unlimited data, as having no long-term obligation or hidden fees. In a 2016 interview with Kanojia, you may learn more about Starry’s roots.
Though there has been some speculation about the company’s technology and whether it can work given its ability to beam long distances and what might happen in inclement weather, Kanojia told TechCrunch that Starry’s unique technique drew a lot of investor attention from the likes of FirstMark, Tiger Global Management, and KKR, and the company eventually raised $400 million before going public.
He explained that when Starry decided to go public, it was searching for a “long-term, supporting collaboration,” which it found in FirstMark. According to the firm, Kanojia will oversee the new organisation, which will have a pro forma enterprise value of $1.76 billion and gross proceeds of $176 million.
“You don’t see many corporations investing in a seed-stage startup and nurturing it to an IPO,” Kanojia noted. In public markets, the long-term nature of partnerships is crucial, so we really wanted someone who had seen that movie. For many of us, this friendship has already lasted 20 years.
If Kanojia’s name seems familiar, it’s because he launched the Aereo network television streaming service—which FirstMark also funded—to gather material from free over-the-air signals, effectively with the purpose of altering how we watch television. When TV broadcasters objected, they brought Aereo to court, where the Supreme Court ultimately declared that Aereo’s business was unconstitutional.
“The court’s history is replete with terrible rulings, and we were one of them,” Kanojia said. Despite this, Aereo had a well-received product and a rapidly expanding business plan, according to him.
He learned from the experience that there is a “pent-up desire to treat clients in the way they believe is fair.”As a result, when he founded Starry, he intended to deliver a customer-focused experience that added value to customers, as opposed to competitors who, he claims, are company-focused and extract value from customers.
Meanwhile, Kanojia appears to be on the verge of a happy ending with the conclusion of the SPAC agreements. According to Kanojia, Starry now has a dedicated customer base that is also fast rising.
“Going public was a capital event for us, not a liquidity event, so we are not going to screw around with the recipe, but get on a regular capital cycle,” he added. “The company is doing incredibly well.”
