- Geospatial analytics software industry Orbital Insight announced it raised $50 million in Series D funding co-led by Sequoia and Clearvision
Orbital Insight — a leader of the geospatial analytics software industry — announced that it raised $50 million in Series D funding co-led by Sequoia Capital and Clearvision Ventures with participation from Invicta Growth, Bunge Ventures Ltd, Chevron Technology Ventures, Goldman Sachs, Tech Pioneers Fund, and returning investors GV, Geodesic Capital, SKY Perfect JSAT, Intellectus Partners, and Lux Capital. Including this funding round, Orbital Insight has now raised a total of $125 million.
The company is now positioned to increase its enterprise software market share among global corporations. And the new capital raised will be used for accelerating product innovation and expansion of the company’s software solution called Orbital Insight GO — which provides decision-making analytics powering greater profitability, operations, and policies with geospatial applications. The current use cases include supply chain monitoring, real estate analysis, infrastructure mapping, and defense and intelligence.
“Artificial Intelligence and Commercial Space are two of the most exciting and innovative areas of our time,” said Orbital Insight CEO and founder Dr. James Crawford. “We’re proud and excited to be able to continue to bring them together to serve our mission of understanding what is happening on and to the Earth. We’re putting the power of geospatial analysis into our customers’ hands, allowing them to ask and answer their own questions about trends and events anywhere in the world.”
Ever since Orbital Insight raised its Series C funding round in 2017, the company is continuing to expand its multi-source geospatial offering to include optical satellite imagery, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), drone and aerial imagery, location-based intelligence, connected devices, vessel tracking (AIS), and other forms of geospatial data.
And Orbital Insight also hired Jim Cook as the company’s new CFO and Jens Tellefsen as a new SVP of Product. Plus the company also created a federal advisory board, including former NGA Director Robert Cardillo and former USGIF CEO Keith Masback.
The Orbital Insight GO platform launched in May 2019 in the American, European, and Asian markets. And the company experienced a surge of demand from clients seeking trusted geospatial data to quickly, accurately, and economically analyze infrastructure, supply chains, commodities, and areas of interest pertaining to national security.
Plus Orbital Insight also entered into strategic partnerships with firms like Airbus to co-develop powerful change analysis and insights for Airbus Defense and Intelligence customers. And now the product today is trusted by leading financial services firms, several U.S. government agencies, major corporations, and global non-profit organizations.
“It’s easy to take it for granted, but we are living in the era of remote sensing and artificial intelligence,” explained Bill Coughran, partner at Sequoia and Orbital Insight board member. “Orbital Insight has transformed technology previously reserved for specialized government agencies into mainstream software to optimize organizational operations, revenue, and policies.”
