A look at Aalyria, founded by Google veterans to develop a high-speed network to connect satellites, boats, and more using lasers, building on the Loon moonshot
In an earlier period of its history, Google became famous for pursuing a range of long-shot projects, such as space elevators …
Context & Ripple Effects
Aalyria is the second act of Google's stratospheric internet ambitions. Project Loon began as an effort to beam connectivity between high-altitude balloons — Google automated launches and passed internet signals between balloons to extend their range as early as 2015, and later partnered with AT&T on disaster-response cellular coverage before Loon was shut down in 2021.
The laser-communication lineage didn't die with Loon: Alphabet spun laser-based internet company Taara out of its X incubator in 2025, and Aalyria — founded by Google veterans to link satellites, boats, and other platforms with lasers — later raised $100M at a $1.3B valuation on software that routes traffic across diverse low-earth-orbit satellite platforms. This 2022 profile captures Aalyria at the moment it emerged from the moonshot pipeline as an independent company.
First-order effects
- Google's moonshot connectivity research now operates as a standalone company: Aalyria's founders take laser-link technology developed inside Loon and sell it to satellite operators and maritime customers rather than serving only Alphabet's internal needs.
- Alphabet demonstrates a repeatable exit path for moonshot projects — Loon's technology base has now produced two spinouts, Aalyria and Taara, converting shut-down or incubated programs into externally funded businesses.
Second-order effects
- Satellite operators and connectivity providers gain a vendor-neutral routing layer for low-earth-orbit traffic, pressuring any single-constellation operator whose value proposition depends on customers staying inside one proprietary network.
- Taara and Aalyria, both commercializing laser communications out of the same X lineage, now compete for the same terrestrial and space customers for optical link technology — Alphabet's incubator has become a source of rivals as well as products.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Alphabet's moonshot model matures into a spinout factory: long-shot infrastructure projects are incubated internally, and the survivors are capitalized by outside investors as independent companies — Loon's $1.3B-valuation successor being the proof point.
- Space and remote connectivity shifts toward interoperable laser mesh networks layered across multiple satellite platforms, rather than connectivity owned end-to-end by a single constellation — the routing software becomes the strategic layer.
The trend: Google's connectivity moonshots are being converted from in-house experiments into venture-funded spinouts — Taara and Aalyria — with laser-based networking emerging as the durable commercial core.