Photo credit: OnInnovation

Kymeta Corporation, a Redmond, Washington-based wireless communications upstart, has announced that it’s raised $85 million in new financing led by Bill Gates, who is joined by participants including members of Kymeta’s own leadership team. The new financing boosts the total amount of funding that Kymeta has raised since its inception to about $300 million. The new funding builds on an 18-month period of growth for Kymeta, which says it’s seen a rapid growth of new customers. Kymeta is a wireless communications startup that has come up with a new type of smart, powered flat panel antenna that can be used to improve satellite and ceullular connection signal strength. The company was founded in 2015.

Bill Gates is a prolific investor in global startups, with a portfolio that mainly covers frontier areas such as biotech, healthcare, and in this case wireless communications. For this round, he’s ponying up $78 million out of the total $85 million provided and had actually previously invested in Kymeta.