Paramium Technologies takes inspiration from the ancient art of origami to innovate designs for satellite communication antennas. Proliferation of satellites has caused a compounding bottleneck where satellites are struggling to get their data down to earth. There were 28,318 active satellites in orbit at the end of 2024.
There are not enough earth stations to receive the data collected by the satellites we currently have. This means that satellites are collecting millions of dollars of data that is getting dumped because it is too expensive to receive the data on earth. Launch costs have dropped by 10x in the last decade and will fall again as SpaceX’s Starship comes online. Experts predict that there will be over 100,000 satellites by 2030. Paramium is mass producing a network of earth station antennas to provide connectivity for the new space race.
Paramium is building a self-serve Ground Station as a Service (GSaaS) platform to alleviate the shortage. Satellite companies can use Paramium’s antenna network to download data from their satellites. Paramium’s secret to mass producing enough antennas for global coverage is their new, patent-protected antenna design called the Magnum™, based on principles of origami.
Paramium was selected to present this solution at the Satellite 2025 conference in Washington, DC on 11 March 2025.
Paramium was also selected to present at Destination Startup on Thursday, 13 March 2025 in Boulder, Colo.
Paramium’s Magnum™ antenna is made from folded sheet metal parts to optimize the cost and speed of manufacture and installation. Paramium has established a partnership with Hastings HVAC, a sheet metal fabrication company in Nebraska, USA who has now invested in Paramium. Hastings will laser cut the flat parts and fold them according to Paramium’s patent-protected origami design. This magnum design also leverages another mass production strategy called Poka-yoke, which is also (coincidentally) of Japanese origin. Poka-yoke means that the geometry of parts makes it impossible to assemble them incorrectly. This approach is often used in automotive manufacturing to accelerate assembly. The Magnum antenna design uses this principle in its folded parts so that each mating joint is uniquely shaped to only accept the correct part. Paramium also uses patented technology to form high precision reflector panels on a computerized mold of adjustable shape. These proprietary technologies mean that Paramium can quickly and economically fabricate high quality antennas to keep pace with the exploding demand to get data down from space.
Visionary Founders Innovated Solutions
Co-founders Dr. Christian Davila-Peralta and Dr. Justin Hyatt started Paramium in 2019 to mass produce radio antenna reflectors. They licensed patents they developed while researching together at the University of Arizona. Last year their business expanded to provide satellite earth stations as a service. The investment community responded by supporting a $1 million Seed A round at the end of 2024. “We saw the huge need to get data down from LEO satellites,” said Hyatt, Paramium’s CEO. “Other GSaaS companies were trying to sell time on assortments of legacy antennas. We knew there was a better way.” So, they proceeded to design their own ground station optimized for mass production and multi-user shared infrastructure. Dr. Davila-Peralta, the company’s CTO explained, “We started with the foundation of modern performance requirements. Each ground station needs to serve dozens of satellites every day. That pointed directly to multiband antennas with a digital back end.”
Paramium’s Magnum™ antennas will be the same across the entire network, providing a standard user experience. “Booking time on our platform is as easy as scheduling a meeting on Zoom,” Hyatt said. “Imagine you wanted to make a phone call as you were driving across town, and you needed to schedule in advance which cell towers you would connect with along the way. That’s how satcom is now. Paramium is taking us to the future with constant, uninterrupted communication.”