Before founding the deep tech venture Space CoLAB, Carley Scott was already working at the edge of Australia’s space ambitions.
“I had been involved in several ventures, including early work to develop Australia’s first commercial spaceport, the Arnhem Space Centre,” Carley says.
“It made me think about the challenges involved in secure communications and intelligence security in high-stakes environments.”
Through her early work in space infrastructure and satellite security, Carley began to see a deeper issue emerging: critical communications systems were only becoming more vulnerable as technology advanced.
That view was reinforced by Amrit Bagia, who had valuable insights from years inside the world of US intelligence agencies and national security. While working within the Biden-Harris administration, she had a front-row seat into how global threats were evolving, particularly as technology became more sophisticated.
“What became clear to me was that security agencies were often operating without the level of information or protection they really needed. That stayed with me,” Ami says.
When the two connected at a conference in 2023, they found common ground quickly, shaped by shared perspectives on emerging industry challenges and a mutual respect for each other’s work in a male-dominated field.
But it was only in 2025 that Carley sat down with Ami over dinner to share her pioneering startup idea.
“For me, it felt like a real lightbulb moment. It genuinely gave me goosebumps,” Ami says.
A new model for secure communications
Space CoLAB’s technology combines hardware and software – a method that rethinks secure communication from the ground up.
Its hardware system HaloCore is key to what makes it a fundamentally different approach that doesn’t rely on stronger encryption alone.
“HaloCore is a portable unit about the size of a 15-kilogram briefcase, which can sit on a building or a mobile asset like a ship to create a secure communications link,” Carley says.
By using a laser and diamond-based quantum technology, HaloCore generates a form of light that is far more secure than traditional communication methods. This is a real breakthrough in how information can be transmitted.
In simple terms, Space CoLAB is offering a new foundation for secure communications designed for a quantum-enabled future.
A problem accelerating faster than expected
The problem Carley and Ami set out to tackle is already here and growing.
Secure communications already underpin everything from defence operations to financial systems and critical infrastructure. But advances in quantum computing are now reshaping what “secure” really means.
Encryption methods once considered unbreakable could quickly become vulnerable as computing power accelerates.
For Ami, now Chief Operating Officer of Space CoLAB, it reflects her real-world experience.
“The thing that kept me up at night in my previous roles was knowing that adversaries could already be inside our systems collecting encrypted data and we wouldn’t necessarily know they were there,” she says.
“There’s a growing threat known as ‘harvest now, decrypt later’, where data is collected today and decrypted in the future when quantum computing becomes powerful enough.”
With these factors also at play, there’s a widening gap between how data is protected today and what will be required very soon.
Building capability in Victoria
The team is now focused on scaling the technology and bringing it into real-world environments.
“While our software layer is more straightforward, the real challenge and opportunity is in the hardware, particularly the diamond-based quantum system,” Carley says.
“We’ve built a minimum viable product, and we’ve been able to grow and refine diamonds to the level needed for this technology. We were excited to see it demonstrate success in lab testing.”
Victoria has become a key part of that journey, offering access to advanced research capabilities and deep expertise in materials science.
Carley and Ami will also join other ambitious founders in LaunchVic’s Basecamp program, which will help them design, hire and lead a high-performance team.
Scaling a globally relevant solution
As Space CoLAB moves toward commercialisation, the opportunity extends well beyond a single sector.
“There’s real momentum behind what we’re doing and we’re now seeking pilot partners with potential applications spanning defence, space, banking, healthcare and critical infrastructure to bring the technology into real-world environments,” says Ami.
While the path forward is complex and capital-intensive, progress to date has particularly been rapid for a deep tech venture of this kind.
Looking ahead, Carley and Ami see a clear role for Australia in shaping the future of secure communications.
“Secure communications is becoming one of the defining challenges globally – and deep tech solutions like this are increasingly sought after,” Carley says
“We’re making strong progress, and now it’s about scaling that impact with the right partners and investors.”
