Satellite Chip Startup TUSK IC Raises $16M to Mass-Produce Ka-Band Chips

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-18

TUSK IC, a fabless semiconductor company based in Antwerp, Belgium, has just closed a €15 million Series A funding round. That's about $16.3 million at current exchange rates. The round was led by Matterwave Ventures, FORWARD.one, and the Flanders Future Tech Fund, which is managed by PMV. The Schaubroeck family also participated, alongside continued backing from existing investors. So why does this matter? TUSK IC is on a mission to make satellite communications more affordable and scalable. And they're doing it with a clever twist: using standard CMOS manufacturing instead of expensive specialty materials. ### From Automotive Radar to Satellite Communications Founded in 2018 as a spin-out from KU Leuven's mmWave research group, TUSK IC started by designing radio-frequency chips for automotive radar and industrial sensing. In 2022, they expanded into satellite communications hardware. Their flagship product? A set of Standard CMOS-based beamformer chips for Ka-band satellite links. The company claims these are the world's first of their kind. These chips are a core component of the flat-panel antennas used in satellite user terminals, and they offer a lower-cost, lower-power alternative to specialty semiconductor materials like SiGe that dominate the sector today. Their product line, marketed under the ConnectKa name, includes transmit and receive beamformer chips alongside a low-noise amplifier. All are built for electronically steerable antennas aimed at low Earth orbit (LEO) and medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellite constellations. By building on mainstream CMOS processes rather than specialized materials, TUSK IC says it can bring costs down without sacrificing performance. They describe this as central to their mission of "democratising" satellite connectivity. ### What the Funding Will Do The new capital will accelerate the commercialization of TUSK IC's Ka-band beamformer chips. It will also help scale from prototype to high-volume production. The company is already working with an unnamed satellite equipment manufacturer to integrate its beamformer technology into a new electronically steered array antenna. This Series A follows an earlier milestone this year: TUSK IC secured a contract from the European Space Agency, backed by the Belgian science policy office BELSPO, under ESA's Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems programme. > "This milestone reflects the expertise and excellence of our entire team, who have turned an ambitious vision into a commercially relevant product platform. The investment will accelerate the transition from prototype chips to high-volume production. We are grateful for the trust our investors have placed in us and for the confidence our customers and partners continue to show," said Kathleen Philips, CEO of TUSK IC. ### Why This Matters for the Space Industry Satellite constellations are growing fast. With companies like SpaceX's Starlink and Amazon's Project Kuiper launching thousands of satellites, the demand for affordable ground terminals is skyrocketing. Traditional satellite user terminals are expensive and power-hungry, largely because they rely on specialized semiconductor materials. TUSK IC's CMOS-based chips could change that. By leveraging the same manufacturing processes used for everyday electronics, they can achieve economies of scale that specialty materials can't match. That means cheaper, more efficient antennas for everyone from maritime operators to rural broadband providers. As Silviu Apostu, Partner at Matterwave Ventures, put it: "The future of connectivity will be determined not only by the constellations in orbit, but also by the technologies that make high-performance user terminals scalable and affordable on the ground. TUSK IC combines leading-edge mmWave innovation with the economics and scalability of standard CMOS, addressing a critical bottleneck in satellite communications." ### The Bottom Line TUSK IC's $16.3 million raise is a strong vote of confidence in their approach. If they can deliver on the promise of low-cost, high-performance Ka-band chips, they could play a key role in making satellite internet accessible to more people around the world. And that's something worth watching.