RF startup AnySignal formalized its partnership with bus manufacturer Apex, allowing customers to add its AnyLink network and radios to the purchase of Apex’s platforms.
“Making it clear to the customers that if they just use AnyLink and the underlying software components, a lot of things get easier,” AnySignal cofounder and CEO John Malsbury told Payload. “It just became an obvious thing to do once it was well proven.”
The companies did not disclose the value of the deal. AnySignal also sells AnyLink to other bus manufacturers.
Going steady: The partnership between AnySignal and Apex dates back to Apex’s earliest missions, according to Malsbury, when AnySignal proved its AnyLink tech on Apex buses across multiple missions.
The companies say the new partnerships offer customers:
- Optional telemetry, tracking, and command capabilities;
- A single provider from mission design, through to on-orbit operations.
“Apex provides spacecraft platform capabilities to our customers, who use the variety of ground options that exist today for operations,” Apex CEO and cofounder Ian Cinnamon told Payload via email. “For some customers, onboarding a ground segment as part of Apex’s offering is an area where we can significantly streamline their mission.”
Roam free: AnyLink aggregates ground networks from several companies—including KSAT, Leaf Space, and RBC Signals—into a single, optimized path for operators.
Malsbury compared it to a phone plan. The space norm is buying a radio from a single vendor, leasing ground segment from another, securing an FCC license, and writing software to tie the pieces together. “Imagine if you had to do that with your cell phone,” he said.
A phone roams between towers without the user noticing, he said, and AnyLink does the same across ground providers.
AnySignal has flown nine missions, per Malsbury, and employs ~80 people at its facility in Torrance, CA. The company raised a $24M Series A in December.
Jam session: AnySignal also won two Space Force awards this year, both built on the same commercial platform it is selling to commercial operators.
- March: The Space Force selected AnySignal to field Project RAIDEN, which senses jamming and interference and autonomously shifts frequencies or networks in response.
- August: The company was tapped to demonstrate satellite-to-satellite links, which move sensor data between spacecraft in near-real time.
The Space Force buys AnySignal’s radios commercially, Malsbury said, because the platform already exists and the company updates it with software—describing the purchase as efficient procurement from the DoD.
Broad band: Malsbury said AnySignal is adapting the same platform for tactical connectivity, air defense, radar, electronic warfare, and signals intelligence—describing the work as careful, isolated experimentation.
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