Apolink, a startup backed by Y Combinator, has raised $4.3 million in an oversubscribed seed round on the promise to deliver always-on connectivity to LEO satellites, compensating for orbital blindspots, earning a $45 million valuation for the company.

First reported in TechCrunch, the round included Y Combinator, 468 Capital, Unshackled Ventures, Rebel Fund, Maiora Ventures, and several angel investors such a Laura Crabtree, CEO of Epsilon3, Benjamin Bryant, co-founder of Pebble Tech, and Kanav Kariya, president of Jump Crypto.

The company’s founder, Onkar Singh Batra, has been hailed as a child prodigy in his native India in the Jammu region after revealing his ‘InQube’ nanosatellite at age 12, and becoming the world’s youngest webmaster after opening a website at seven, alongside many other awards. Batra admits his interest in technology was sparked by his father, who is a self-made IT professional.

Formerly known as Bifrost Orbital, California-based Apolink, founded in 2024 in Palo Alto, aims to address orbital dead zones for low-Earth satellites when they are not in line of sight with a connected ground station. Because different companies’ LEO satellites usually aren’t interoperable with each other, inter-satellite links between different constellations can’t compensate for this downtime.

The company aims to address this with a constellation of 32 satellites designed to form inter-satellite links universally with a mix of optical, radio, and other solutions, serving as a universal connectivity platform targeting 99 percent uptime and 10-15 seconds of latency for its clients, intended to reduce to 2-3 seconds once the network is complete.

The US government has spent hundreds of millions on the problem with DARPA’s Space-BACN program seeking to standardize Western inter-satellite links since 2022 so that rival constellations can still transmit information through compatible optical technologies. As ground stations proliferate and constellations install more advanced and interoperable optical intersatellite links, the need for a dedicated middleman constellation may be fleeting.

"We work closely with the U.S. and its allies, and that alignment reflects our core company values," Onkar Singh Batra told DCD. "While we don’t rule out collaborations with other countries, our position remains firmly aligned with the geopolitical interests of the United States."

Apolink, a portmanteau of apogee and link, aims to perform a demo mission with its 3U LinkONE/IPoS satellite in the second quarter of 2026, intended to illustrate a backwards-compatible radio relay in LEO. A second demonstrator is planned in 2027 and full commercial roll-out by 2029.

The company has reportedly seen letters of intent totaling more than $140 million from companies in Earth observation, comms, and spatial data, including the companies Astro Digital, Hubble Network, and Star Catcher Industries.

The core team consists of four members, each with over five years of industry experience from companies like Maxar, Audacy, and Astra, except for Batra, who is 19.

Apolink did not immediately respond to calls for comment.