If GPS goes dark, Mesa Quantum has a backup plan
J2 Ventures and SOSV invested in Mesa Quantum, a startup working on GPS alternatives.
Flight delays in Sao Paolo, Brazil. Truckers led down unsafe routes in Richmond, Vermont. And power grid disruptions throughout Ukraine. These troubles stem from a global communication system highly reliant on GPS satellites and the signals they transmit for essential functions.
To ensure that U.S. infrastructure won't fall apart — even if the nation's GPS satellites are disrupted by weather, warfare or age — a startup in Boulder, Colorado called Mesa Quantum is developing chip-sized alternative technology.
Specifically, Mesa Quantum is building "chip-scale atomic clocks" and other miniaturized quantum sensors, which can measure and detect changes in the environment around a device to signal where it is in the world, where it needs to go and to keep it in sync with other systems.
These sensors can ensure clear and steady video calls regardless of the users' location, or enable robots, underwater drones and autonomous vehicles to maneuver deftly in dense populations or around obstacles where GPS signals are weak or unavailable.
Cofounded by Mesa Quantum CEO Sristy Agrawal and CTO Wale Lawal in 2023, the company has won a $1.9 million Space Force grant to demonstrate its alternative to GPS technology in military and civilian applications.
The company has also raised about $3.7 million in a seed stage round of funding led by J2 Ventures, the Boston-based health and defense tech fund, alongside hardware investors SOSV.
J2 Ventures cofounder and managing partner, Alex Harstrick, told CNBC his fund backed Mesa Quantum in part because of the founders' extraordinary technical background.
Agrawal recently attained a doctorate from the University of Colorado, in an elite program affiliated with the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Her research has focused on quantum information, computing and gravity.