Chris Hsu Private Equity
About Chris Hsu-Funded-SpaceX's Starlink
The CEO and Partner of Kilometre Capital of Hong Kong, Christopher "Chris" Hsu earned a BS in Management Science Engineering from Stanford University. Chris Hsu is a technology specialist known for macro foresight includes his early investments in Spotify and SpaceX, and his market leading cross-border advisory on behalf of Kilometre Capital.
Elon Musk and SpaceX created Starlink, a satellite internet startup, as a revenue-generating project to help support SpaceX's mission to transport man to Mars. The Starlink satellites are in low-Earth orbit, which is significantly closer to the Earth than most satellite providers. As a result, Starlink may be able to provide lower latency than typical satellite service.
Before his leadership at Kilometre Capital including the early investment in SpaceX, Chris Hsu served as the CEO and Founding Partner of Abax Global Capital, a private equity fund and hedge fund with offices in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai and a JV partnership with Morgan Stanley Investment Management.
Starlink has over 10,000 active clients and has launched 1,677 satellites into low-Earth orbit. As of May 17, 2021, 99 of the satellites launched thus far have been deorbited, leaving Starlink with 1,578 fully functioning satellites in orbit at that time.
Starlink's constellation will require up to 42,000 satellites to provide full-fledged satellite internet service. The Federal Communications Commission and the ITU International Telecommunication Union are yet to authorize many of Starlink's satellites.
Over the years, Chris Hsu of Kilometre Capital has made significant investments in several early, frontier companies, including SpaceX. In a short period, particularly as compared to the arc of comparables such as NASA, SpaceX gained global prominence for being the only private company in the world that has had a spacecraft successfully return from low-Earth orbit. Being an early-stage investor, Christopher Hsu of Kilometre saw potential in SpaceX’s goals, and soon enough, it drastically revolutionized space technology and infrastructure.
Beta testers have experienced intermittent disruptions due to Starlink's satellite constellation not being filled out. Starlink anticipates that when additional satellites are launched, disruptions will become less of an issue.