Urban Sky, a stratospheric platform company, announced it closed a $30 million Series B investment round. This funding round will be used to develop and commercialize a connected suite of products that will unlock the full value of the tactical stratosphere for military and commercial customers.
This funding round was led by Altos Ventures, with participation from New Legacy Ventures, Lerer Hippeau, Catapult Ventures, Lavrock Ventures, New Stack Ventures, TenOneTen, DA Ventures (a Denver Angels Affiliate), Union Labs VC, and Techstars.
Urban Sky’s tech stack includes the world’s most advanced high-altitude balloons, custom stratospheric payloads, control software, and AI-derived forecasting and autonomous flight control systems. And these systems collectively enable high-resolution, persistent data monitoring above vast areas for commercial applications like real-time wildfire monitoring.
These same systems also provide U.S. and allied defense users with a personally deployable satellite or a novel platform that offers tactical, asymmetric, long-dwell, and deep-reach access to the high-altitude environment for communications and intelligence mission support.
Going forward, Urban Sky will advance new technologies needed to deploy the first-ever global constellation of long-duration, persistent stratospheric balloons for commercial use cases, including search & rescue, environmental monitoring, and disaster response.
Urban Sky (founded in 2019) has already commercialized its first major product – which is the stratospheric Microballoon (mHAB), a rapidly deployable, navigable and persistent stratospheric balloon. And microballoons can operate at altitudes above 60,000 feet for multiple days, unlocking unprecedented access to the stratosphere – a domain between aircraft and satellites that represents one of the last untapped frontiers for defense and commercial applications.
Urban Sky is already working with a growing set of commercial, civil government, and U.S. defense customers, including NASA, the oil & gas sector, the wildfire monitoring sector, the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force.
Of recent note, the company’s existing Hot Spot system, which is being developed in partnership with NASA and the Air Force, utilizes a long-wave infrared (LWIR) imaging payload and satellite connectivity to deliver real-time, high-resolution wildfire monitoring without impacting lower-altitude airborne firefighting operations. And Urban Sky flew the system this month over the Palisades Fire in California, demonstrating the ability to produce heat maps with infrared data 100x finer than publicly available satellite data sources like MODIS and VIIRS.
KEY QUOTES:
“As a fund, we believe in investing in deeply committed founding teams that understand one big thing that others don’t. In Urban Sky, we see a category-defining opportunity and the potential for a great, lasting company. We’re excited to partner with them to unlock the full value of the stratosphere globally.”
– Anthony Lee, Managing Director at Altos Ventures
“Our team has already made huge strides to pioneer humanity’s routine and easy access to the stratosphere and the value locked within it. This new capital will allow us to accelerate the development of our technology and product portfolio to make an even greater impact on our customers’ missions.”
– Andrew Antonio, CEO and co-founder of Urban Sky
“We continue to believe that Urban Sky represents a category-defining business led by an exceptional and uniquely experienced founding team. We have a strong conviction that this Series B financing will enable an exponential expansion of valuable data and insights from the stratosphere, where Urban Sky is positioned as an industry leader.”
– Alex Wong, Partner at New Legacy Ventures and Urban Sky Board Member
