Taara, Alphabet’s venture to take on Elon Musk’s Starlink with its light-based internet, is to become an independent company.
While it will spin out of the tech giant’s “moonshot” incubator X, Alphabet will retain a minority stake.
Taara has also secured funding from Series X Capital, and is currently operating in 12 countries with a workforce of just two dozen.
Its laser-based technology beams a narrow beam of light from one terminal (the size of a traffic light), through which it can transmit data at speeds of up to 20 gigabits per second over distances of up to 20km.
Last month, Taara announced it had squeezed its technology into a chip, expecting to launch a product based on it in 2026.