Community is key in Aussie space tech success, says Fleet’s Flavia Tata Nardini

Founded just over five years ago, Fleet Space is nevertheless one of the most mature startups in the Aussie space tech ecosystem.

For co-founder Flavia Tata Nardini, that means more cameraderie than competition, and an unwavering dedication to help the whole ecosystem succeed alongside her own business.

Headed up by Tata Nardini and co-founder Matthew Peason, Fleet builds shoebox-sized micro-satellites designed to facilitate communications for Internet-of-Things devices.

Particularly, the startup caters to the evolving energy industry, creating an infrastructure connecting renewable energy sites, for example, that are often incredibly isolated.

Back in 2015, the co-founders saw trends emerging in the new space economy, IoT and energy transition, and set out to bring them all together.

It was “two people and a dream,” she recalls.

But, by 2017 the startup had raised $5 million in Series A funding, led by Blackbird Ventures and including investment from Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes.

Two years later, the startup bagged another US$7.35 million ($10 million) in a round led by Hong Kong-based Horizons Ventures.

Today, Fleet has six shoebox satellites in the sky — the beginnings of a constellation that will number more than 100. It has a team of 35 people, and is working with utilities customers across Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US.

The business is now starting to work on mass-producing its satellites, allowing it to ramp up growth further. And the co-founders are in the process of raising more capital.

It takes just a minute or two of conversation to gauge the extent of Tata Nardini’s passion for spacetech. She’s a fast and animated talker, barely pausing for breath as she runs me through a brief history of Fleet.

“The market is fascinating,” she says.

The IoT sector is “thriving”, with connected devices now outnumbering smartphones, globally.

At the same time, the cost of launching satellites into space is plummeting, as more and more private businesses get into the game and develop tech to make their launches more efficient.

Just a couple of years ago launching a satellite could cost $1 million, Tata Nardini says. Today, it’s more like $250,000.

“The ecosystem around us is moving so fast,” she says.

“It is the best time for this industry.”

Fleet Space’s Centauri 4 satellite. Source: supplied.

Strength in numbers

When Tata Nardini talks about the industry, she truly means the whole industry, not just her own business. A startup like hers cannot exist in a vacuum, and many of its milestone moments have come about through partnerships with other spacetech pioneers.

Its first two satellites shot into space from New Zealand, aboard the first commercial rocket of spacecraft company Rocket Lab.

Fleet has also partnered up with fellow Aussie startup Gilmour Space; it’s working with Q-CTRL to apply quantum navigation technologies to space travel; and it’s part of the Seven Sisters partnership of Aussie companies and researchers working on lunar exploration.

Forging strong working relationships in this sector is “really, really important”, Tata Nardini says.

The success of rocket startups is integral to the success of satellite startups, she notes. She and her team had to wait nine months to get their first satellites aboard a launch.

“Can you imagine if a software startup needed to wait nine months before they could launch their product in the market?”

So, obviously, she wants as many rocket businesses as possible to succeed. Competition brings the price down, sure, but it also means more availability, which means more progress.

And it works both ways. Fleet can’t build its 100-satellite strong constellation if it can’t get access to rockets. Rocket startups can’t build rockets if there’s not enough commercial demand.

“There is this loop that we are trying to unlock by partnering, by trusting each other, by giving contracts and support,” Tata Nardini notes.

“They don’t succeed without us and we don’t succeed without them.”

Choosing the perfect partner

That said, actually forging those partnerships is often easier said than done. It’s one thing to see the value in working as a team, but quite another to choose your players.

Perhaps an unexpected challenge is the sheer number of rocket launch businesses out there, Tata Nardini says.

“How do you select the right partners?”

For her, the mark of a business with good people, a good business case and good values is good investors.

“If a company in Australia has the best investors … it is a stamp of a team that is doing something good,” she explains.

It doesn’t necessarily mean they will definitely succeed, or that they will definitely be a good partner.

“But someone is looking into what they are doing, and it is looking healthy.”

In other industries, such a prerequisite to partnership might seem unfair. But, in the space sector, there’s often not a whole lot you can do without some cash in your pocket.

Still, the bar is set high. So quality funding means a potential partner has ticked all the right boxes, even if it’s at an early stage.

Fleet Space co-founder and chief Flavia Tata Nardini. Source: supplied.

An interstellar community

But for Tata Nardini, building a community is about more than working with her startup peers. It’s about fostering success in the next generation of Aussie space tech, too.

Fleet is an investor in CSIRO-backed Quasar Satellite Technologies, and in the Moonshot space tech accelerator, for which the founder is also a mentor.

As the sector picks up speed, it’s important to keep that momentum going, she says.

“You cannot succeed by yourself.

“Investors invest in a market that has momentum and that is flourishing.”

There are three or four space startups in Australia that are attracting significant chunks of capital from high-profile investors. But, for a sector that relies so heavily on attracting external capital, it’s important to help the newcomers get on the radar, too.

And more investment highlights the market appeal, attracting yet more investors, creating a snowball effect, she says.

“If investors look at Australia and see five, six, ten companies that are on their way to becoming unicorns, that’s exciting.”

They say a rising tide lifts all spacecraft. The more Tata Nardini and the Fleet team can support other startups, the healthier the ecosystem will be, leading to more opportunities for everyone — including, of course, Fleet.

Success beyond Silicon Valley

That said, Tata Nardini’s passion for giving back to the community goes beyond the benefit to her business.

She wants to help build the kind of ecosystem she would have liked to have leaned on five years ago, when she was trying to get FLeet off the ground.

Starting out in a sector that doesn’t really exist yet has its challenges, to put it mildly. She was told her business would never succeed outside of Silicon Valley, she recalls.

“What a big sentence — when someone tells you you’re never going to make it because this is not an Australian game.”

Getting to where Fleet is today took a whole lot of self-belief and conviction in the business model, she explains. She knew there were massive players in her target market in Australia — more than were in The Valley, for sure.

“But it is tough at the beginning,” she says.

She now feels a certain responsibility to help others, although she maintains she’s no expert. Fleet may be a mature player in the context of the Aussie space industry, but five years isn’t actually very long.

“I don’t have 20 years’ experience, I’m still learning myself, I’m making mistakes, so don’t ask me for advice,” she laughs.

On the other hand, she’s on the same journey at the same time, and facing similar challenges along the way.

Like many mentors in many startup sectors, she’s been in their shoes. But, by virtue of being in such a fast-growing space, she’s been there very recently.

Her memories are fresh and, as she admits, she’s still figuring things out.

“I’m closer to the rules of the game.”