New Horizons for the Geospatial Industry: Announcing Our Series C Funding
In the last sixty years, we’ve witnessed an unparalleled transformation in how we view our home planet. From the first satellite launches to the first humans in orbit, we’ve gained a new visual perspective and understanding of what the Earth really looks like at scale. In the beginning, these visuals were limited in scope, quantity, and availability — but through the years, satellite imagery of the Earth has become ever more abundant and available to the average person.
Now, we’re on the cusp of an exciting new chapter in this story: the imminent arrival of daily satellite imagery of the entire planet. A long sought-after goal for the geospatial industry, this capability will allow us to objectively monitor and measure everything from deforestation to international trade on a global basis with greater accuracy and timeliness than ever before. At the same time, ongoing advances in artificial intelligence are increasing both the accuracy and coverage of computer vision algorithms, making it possible to automate the processing of these vast volumes of imagery.
At Orbital Insight, we’re inspired by the rapid pace of expansion in satellite and drone hardware, and are excited for its impact on our technology. We’re already able to count retail car traffic in the U.S. for more than 100 retailers, measure the amount of oil stored in China, and map poverty in Sri Lanka, among other insights. The ever-increasing frequency and global coverage of satellite imagery from our partners means we’ll be able to expand these capabilities to more regions, while further improving the accuracy of existing products. We also know that there are even more signals we’ll be able to analyze with the increased imagery, and we look forward to exploring these further.
To help meet this demand, we’re focusing our attention on expanding our global presence and increasing our go-to-market capabilities. We plan to open new offices in Asia and Europe in the next year and will be hiring talented new employees to fill those spaces. We’re also rapidly growing our engineering and sales teams in our current Mountain View, Manhattan, and Washington, D.C., offices. This will allow us to continue innovating at a pace that matches the huge expansion in satellite and drone hardware, and to ensure that our product offerings are relevant for an international audience.
Realizing these ambitions is a lofty goal, but one we’re confident that we can achieve with the support of our employees, customers, and partners. To that end, we’re proud to announce today a Series C round of funding, led by existing investor Sequoia Capital, with participation from new investors Envision Ventures, Balyasny Asset Management, Geodesic Capital, ITOCHU Corporation, and Intellectus Partners, along with previous investors GV, Lux Capital and CME Ventures. These funds will help us further our mission to expand globally in the coming year.
It’s an exciting time right now in the geospatial industry. Technological advances allowing for more and better satellites are resulting in unprecedented volumes of imagery of the Earth. At Orbital Insight, we’re driven to continue our mission of analyzing this imagery to help us better understand activities across our planet.
