As a member of Cohort 2 of the Aerospace Accelerator Program, QuantaSense is using its time at the Aerospace Innovation Hub to explore where its advanced amplifier technology can fit within Calgary’s growing aerospace sector.
For Abdul Mohamed, CEO and co-founder of QuantaSense, the company’s work is closely connected to his research at the University of Calgary, where he is completing his PhD.
QuantaSense is developing advanced amplifier technology that can help detect extremely small signals, with potential applications in radio astronomy, satellite communication, deep-space communication, quantum computing, and aerospace.
For Mohamed, joining the Aerospace Innovation Hub has come at an important stage in the company’s development. QuantaSense is preparing to begin sales in the fall, raise an investment round, and continue advancing a pilot program with the National Research Council of Canada to support the use of its amplifiers in observatories.
The Aerospace Accelerator Program is helping the company build toward that next stage with mentorship, business support, industry connections, and a longer runway to apply what it learns.
Mohamed said the Aerospace Accelerator Program gives founders more time to absorb what they are learning and apply it directly to their companies, unlike some accelerators that compress workshops, coaching, and investor preparation into a short, high-pressure sprint.
“We have enough time to digest and really implement these types of learnings inside of whatever business flows we might have,” Mohamed said.
That slower, more deliberate structure has been especially valuable for Mohamed, whose path into entrepreneurship began almost by accident.
At the time, he was working in a University of Calgary lab with his co-founders, who were also colleagues and friends. The idea of starting a company began casually, as something to try, something to learn from, and maybe something useful to add to their CVs.
“We kind of did this for fun,” Mohamed said. “We thought, what if we started a company? It was something we could learn and figure out if it was for us.”
But what began as an experiment soon became much more serious.
After pushing that technology forward, working on a patent, and testing its market potential, the team realized it needed to pivot. That pivot brought QuantaSense closer to Mohamed’s own research and toward a stronger path for commercialization.
“We learned the hard way,” he said. “We realized on the commercial level that it wasn’t the best outcome. So, we had to pivot to some of the research I do, and that really took off after that.”
Today, QuantaSense is focused on building high-performance amplifiers designed to detect weak signals and make them measurable.
Mohamed explains the technology using a simple analogy of an electric guitar and an amplifier. When a guitar string is played, the amplifier makes the signal louder. But not all amplifiers are equal. A poor amplifier can distort the sound, while a better one can make the signal clearer and more useful.
“The principle is exactly the same for us,” Mohamed said. “We build really, really good amplifiers that take really small signals, depending on the user, and make them really big so that they can measure it on the other side.”
QuantaSense works in radio frequency and microwave signals, frequencies that can be used to detect information from space. In radio astronomy, for example, large observatories collect signals from stars, planets, gases, and other distant objects. The challenge is that these signals are often incredibly weak by the time they reach Earth.
That is where QuantaSense’s technology can play an important role.
The company’s amplifiers are designed to help researchers capture and measure weak signals more efficiently. For observatories that are often oversubscribed with research proposals from around the world, better amplifiers could help reduce the time required for certain measurements and create more opportunities for research.
The technology also has a natural connection to aerospace. Mohamed said radio observatories can support passive tracking and detection, including satellites and other objects in space. The amplifiers may also have applications in satellite communication, deep-space communication, and future missions where faster, clearer signals are essential.
“You really have to start thinking about space, satellite communication, deep satellites,” Mohamed said. “If you’re sending them far away, or maybe sending astronauts to the Moon or Mars, that’s when these amplifiers really play a heavy role.”
For Mohamed, Calgary is a strong place to build a company in this space.
He points to the city’s growing aerospace activity, local conferences and industry events, and the strength of the University of Calgary’s research community. He said students and researchers are already working on satellites, rockets, and other technologies often associated with much larger aerospace centres.
“There’s quite an extensive aerospace scene,” Mohamed said. “Students are building satellites, they’re building rockets. They do a lot of the work that you might expect some big, massive company to be doing.”
He also sees Calgary’s aerospace community as collaborative.
“Collaboration here is kind of the biggest factor,” Mohamed said. “No one’s here to try and hide. And we all understand that building this stuff is hard.”
That collaborative environment is one of the reasons the Aerospace Innovation Hub appealed to QuantaSense. Mohamed first heard about the hub through previous Aerospace Accelerator Program participants, including North Vector Dynamics and Threshold UAV. After speaking with founders from the first cohort, he saw how the program had supported their companies and began thinking about how QuantaSense could use the opportunity to explore its own aerospace applications.
“It seemed natural to really try and test our amplifiers in the aerospace area,” he said.
Since joining the program, one of the most valuable supports has been Innovate Calgary’s Expert Advisor Program. Mohamed has been working with Rutvik Deepak, an Expert Advisor supporting investor readiness, on business planning, pitch materials, and strategy.
For a researcher-founder, that outside perspective has been especially helpful.
“As a researcher, you kind of just focus on your technology sometimes,” Mohamed said. “Having that outside perspective has been super, super helpful.”
He said the ability to work closely with advisors to set milestones, review files, refine pitch decks, and dig into the business model has helped QuantaSense think beyond the technology itself and focus on what the company needs to become.
The cohort model has also been important. Mohamed said the year-long program gives companies time to build real relationships and learn from each other’s challenges.
“It’s much more of an ecosystem than just spitting you out after a quick session,” he said.
For QuantaSense, that ecosystem is helping the company prepare for what comes next: sales, investment, continued product development, and deeper aerospace applications.
The work remains challenging, but Mohamed said entrepreneurship requires persistence through both success and uncertainty.
“Being an entrepreneur is hard,” Mohamed said. “But sometimes even in the hard moments, you have to just keep moving forward.”
Looking to fund your aerospace startup? Applications are now open for the the Aerospace Accelerator Program.