Seattle-based Hubble Network is opening up satellite coverage to all Bluetooth devices, and has raised $200m in series C funding to help.

This means if a product has a Bluetooth LE radio, satellites hundreds of kilometres up can hear it without using a dedicated modem or new hardware. Users do have to pull the Hubble SDK and flash a firmware update for the device to be on the network.

For everywhere cellular does not reach, tracking anything has meant dedicated satellite hardware at $25 or more per device. So only the most valuable assets get tracked. Everything else goes dark, and theft and loss cost the average mid-sized business $13m a year.

Hubble turns the Bluetooth LE radio already inside a device into a global beacon for location and sensor data. On a new design, connectivity adds under 50 cents to the bill of materials, roughly a tenth the cost of a cellular modem and a fiftieth the cost of a satellite one.

Until now, tracking ended at the pallet. At under 50 cents per Bluetooth radio, it can follow every item.

The company has six satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), and is on track for 60 by 2030. It has more than 100 million gateways on the terrestrial network, across 170 countries. There are more than 500,000 devices active today, a tenfold increase in a year.

Asset tracking firm Samsara is using the technology to extend visibility to crews working past the edge of reliable coverage.

“Hubble gives us a way to extend visibility beyond the reach of traditional networks without adding new hardware,” said David Gal, vice president at Samsara (www.samsara.com).

Over the past year, Hubble has partnered with Texas Instruments (www.ti.com) to send location and sensor data without gateways, GPS or cellular; with InPlay to pair a sub-$1 chip with gateways for item-level tracking at RFID economics; and with Reelables to put printable smart labels on cargo. Muon Space is building Hubble’s satellites on its MuSat XL platform.

“When we said we’d connect Bluetooth chips to satellites, most of the industry said the physics wouldn’t allow it,” said Alex Haro, CEO and co-founder of Hubble (hubble.com). “Today we’re turning that early scepticism into a global opportunity.”

The $200m funding round was led by Smith Point Capital, with Seraphim, Carthona Capital, Earthshot Ventures, Y Combinator and RPM Ventures. It brings total funding to $300m at a $1.6bn valuation. This is year after its $70m series B round.

“Hubble has built the foundational infrastructure that the physical world is missing,” said Keith Block, CEO of Smith Point Capital.

The capital will go to the constellation and to driving the cost of connectivity down with the eventual goal that anything on Earth can report where it is and how it’s doing.