Satellogic raises $50M to develop the world’s first scalable earth observation platform with the ability to remap the entire planet

Today, less than a third of the countries in the world have their own satellites orbiting the Earth, limiting their ability to capture data about their policy implementation and infrastructure. However, the landscape is changing. One recent report valued the geospatial analytics market at $19.59B in 2018 and predicted that it will reach a value of $29.28B by 2024. In this report, government interest was noted as a key driver of growth. Enter Satellogic, the first company to develop a scalable earth observation platform with the ability to remap the entire planet at both high-frequency and high-resolution.

Today, Satellogic announced it has raised $50 million to meet market demands and accelerate growth. Market Demand Fuels Company’s Growth. Existing investors, including Tencent and Pitanga, contributed about 40% of the $50 million in newly announced funding,  with participation from some existing investors.

The company’s low-Earth-orbit satellite constellation, platform, and data science teams work together to deliver high-frequency, high resolution, end-to-end solutions at the right price point. Satellogic aims to democratize access to space-based services by dramatically reducing the barriers to obtain real-time satellite data.

Founded in 2010 by Emiliano Kargieman, the Palo Alto, California-based Satellogic is a geospatial startup and the first vertically integrated geospatial analytics company. The company’s low-Earth-orbit satellite constellation, platform, and data science teams work together to deliver high-frequency, high resolution, end-to-end solutions at the right price point. Satellogic aims to democratize access to space-based services by dramatically reducing the barriers to obtain real-time satellite data. Satellogic currently has 170 employees and offices in Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Barcelona, Montevideo, Tel Aviv, Beijing, Charlotte and Miami.

New investor, IDB Lab, sees an opportunity for Satellogic to have a meaningful impact in Latin America and the Caribbean in particular. “At IDB Lab, our mission is to leverage innovation towards inclusion in Latin American and the Caribbean,” said Tomás Lopes Teixeira, Senior Investment Officer at IDB Lab.

“We’re excited to support Satellogic’s mission of democratizing access to geospatial analytics solutions, such as monitoring crop growth and preventing the spread of plagues in agriculture to help increase yields and livelihoods of a vast universe of small and medium-sized farmers caught in a low-productivity cycle in the region; improving the reaction time and accuracy in natural disaster response, which typically disproportionately impacts vulnerable populations; and preventing deforestation.” IDB Lab’s financing will be specifically directed towards Satellogic’s development of user-end satellite imagery solutions in these sectors.

Pitanga, also based in the Latin American region, invests in innovative companies with high growth potential and is among the existing investors contributing to Satellogic’s newly announced funding.

“As an investor that has continued to support Satellogic through multiple phases of growth and development, we’re excited to see the market dynamics shift towards what our team has been building since 2010. Governments and industry alike now recognize the power of geospatial analytics, and Satellogic is a proven partner,” said Fernando Reinach, Partner, Pitanga Fund. “When choosing where to invest and reinvest, we seek to fund companies that have the potential to be disruptive and capture a significant portion of large markets in a short time. In this regard, Satellogic is the perfect archetype of the Pitanga portfolio.”

Satellogic recently closed a $38M agreement with ABDAS, a data science company established under the technical support of the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth. The agreement gives ABDAS access to a Dedicated Satellite Constellation and geospatial analytics that will provide them with multispectral imagery for monthly remapping of sites they define within their departmental territory and derive insights through their in-house data science capabilities. Through the partnership, ABDAS is able to leverage their constellation to strengthen and support key policy decisions in the province, with no capital outlay and no technical or operational risks.

“Satellogic is experiencing significant commercial momentum, and we’re grateful to have investors that want to fuel that growth and help us service the demand for our Dedicated Satellite Constellation (DSC) and Dedicated Satellite Services (DSS) solutions,” said Satellogic Founder and CEO, Emiliano Kargieman. “Given the commercial success with our DSC bookings and pipeline, in particular, we’re fortunate to be in a position to use that cash flow to better leverage investor capital in executing our business plan. It’s exciting to know that our investors, new and existing, are there to support us as we enter this next wave of commercialization.”