In this episode of Forward Thinking Founders, Mat Sherman sits down with Gulmohar Ahluwalia, founder & CEO of Nyxara — a company building a next-generation space-to-ground communications system using cloud-piercing lasers capable of delivering terabits per second. Imagine downloading all of Netflix in five seconds. That’s the world Nyxara aims to unlock.

Gulmohar walks through her path from aspiring astronaut to electrical engineer to telecom expert, and how seeing firsthand the limits of today’s 5G and RF-based networks pushed her toward free-space optical communication. She breaks down, in simple terms, why Starlink and other systems can’t get laser signals through clouds, why RF spectrum is physically tapped out, and why optical frequencies represent the next uncongested frontier for 6G-class internet.

She then explains Nyxara’s core breakthrough: using an ultra-high-frequency ground laser to create a “hollow channel” through cloud and fog layers, allowing satellites to send and receive massive data loads reliably — effectively creating a portable, dynamic, distributed network layer in space.

Mat and Gulmohar explore:

• How she broke a world-changing vision into buildable steps
• Why she left Australia for San Francisco, and how the pace, talent density, and serendipity changed everything
• The hardware and optics ecosystem inside Founders Inc
• What a typical day looks like for her — ultramarathon training, deep focus mornings, customer calls, and fundraising
• How Nyxara fits into her broader belief that humanity needs four pillars (vessels, fuel, food/water, and communications) to eventually leave Earth
• Why she hopes one day fiber optic cables will be remembered like floppy disks

Gulmohar closes by sharing where to follow her work: X, Substack, LinkedIn, and the Nyxara newsletter.

If you’re into frontier tech, laser communications, AI-ready infrastructure, or ambitious founder journeys, this is one you’ll want to hear.