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Kuva Space, a hyperspectral imagery startup based in Finland, has closed a €16.6 million ($17.6 million) Series A funding spherical because it seems to deploy as much as 100 satellites by the top of the last decade.
The startup, previously known as Reaktor Space Lab, was based in 2016 and spent its first 4 years targeted on constructing nanosatellites for companies together with the European Space Agency. It has efficiently launched three satellites to-date, together with a cubesat that contained a small hyperspectral digicam demonstration. It was solely round 2020 that the corporate determined to pursue a hyperspectral constellation, with Kuva closing a €4.2 million ($4.85 million) seed spherical in October 2021 to get began.
“Building nanosatellites for other people, it’s not the nicest business in the world,” Kuva Space CEO Jarkko Antila stated in a current interview. “We’ve been always looking at these different opportunities to go into digital services business, through maybe telecom or also hyperspectral.”
Hyperspectral imagery can learn the “spectral signature” of supplies on Earth, which suggests it may be used to determine crops, minerals, and even gasoline. There’s been demand for one of these info from verticals starting from agriculture to grease and gasoline to protection.
Kuva says that its constellation’s floor pixel dimension would be the smallest amongst its rivals as a result of it makes use of a 2D imaging system that layers collectively photos from totally different bands utilizing software program. (It goals to launch two industrial microsatellites subsequent 12 months.) The firm may also choose which of the bands it desires its satellites to measure, a important method to get higher outcomes for purchasers, Antila stated.
“Instead of measuring 250 bands, you can have 25, and you can take 10 times more pictures from the exact same spot,” he defined. “With this you can increase the signal to noise ratio, which is the critical technical parameter in hyperspectral whether your data makes sense or not.”
Kuva plans to supply insights to clients through a subscription, with available knowledge that doesn’t require a buyer tasking a satellite tv for pc prematurely. The startup’s goal is to achieve a greater than weekly revisit fee with a constellation of six satellites launched over the following two years. The firm plans to scale to higher than day by day revisit for a lot of elements of the world by 2026, and needs to scale to 100 satellites in orbit by 2030.
“We want to bring a true SaaS model to the Earth observation business,” he stated.
The startup, which has bagged contracts with the European Commission and gained the NATO Innovation Challenge, goals to determine a U.S. entity to open up alternatives to work with the U.S. Department of Defense and different American organizations. Some of these organizations, just like the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office, have proven an urge for food for such knowledge. The firm at present has 20 staff however plans on tripling its group within the coming months
The spherical was led by present traders Voima Ventures and Nordic Foodtech VC, with participation from Singapore fund Earth VC. The spherical additionally included capital from Finnish non-public traders through a Finland development fund known as Springvest and non-equity funding from Business Finland.