There are millions of satellites orbiting the Earth, and an growing variety of them are capable of seize all forms of pictures in close to actual time.
It was once a considerably cumbersome course of to entry these pictures. However Austin-based startup SkyFi has constructed a platform that acts as a type of “Getty Pictures” for greater than 50 geospatial imagery companions that has confirmed well-liked within the worlds of finance, protection, infrastructure, and insurance coverage — to call a number of.
That recognition escalated as SkyFi started providing extra analytics and insights to its clients by way of its web site and cell app, together with the power to “job” satellites to seize pictures of a location at a particular time, CEO Luke Fischer not too long ago advised TechCrunch in an interview.
“I feel the actual objective for us is offering solutions for purchasers, each authorities and business,” Fischer mentioned. “Imagery is a commodity, or it’s carefully changing into a commodity, [so it’s] not nearly velocity of supply, however extra importantly, velocity of supply of solutions to clients.”
With the ability to supply insights together with easy-to-access imagery is a giant purpose why SkyFi was simply capable of shut a $12.7 million Sequence A funding spherical, in response to Fischer.
That’s mirrored within the investor make-up of the spherical. It was co-led by climate-focused fund Buoyant Ventures and IronGate Capital Advisors, which invests in dual-use firms. Different traders included DNV Ventures (the funding arm of 160-year-old maritime firm DNV), Past Earth Ventures (a space-focused agency), and TFX Capital (which has made quite a lot of defense-related area investments).
Fischer mentioned he and co-founder Invoice Perkins — who comes from the hedge fund world, therefore the emphasis on producing actionable insights — initially solely sought to boost a spherical of about $8 million.
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However 2025 was a report yr for defense-related investments, and SkyFi obtained extra investor demand than anticipated, Fischer mentioned. The corporate upped its goal to $10 million, and once more to $12 million, earlier than arriving on the $12.7 million determine after some strategic traders joined the spherical. (One was DNV; Fischer declined to call the opposite on the report.)
Fischer mentioned SkyFi used to have a tougher time convincing satellite tv for pc imagery suppliers handy over entry to their knowledge. Now, he mentioned, onboarding new suppliers is “desk stakes.”
“It took a took just a little bit for us to get up to now, [but] we have now largest digital constellation of property. Meaning we have now all the info provide on this planet for us, all of the totally different sensor varieties,” he mentioned. SkyFi has been capable of leverage all of that knowledge and, crucially, the various requests it’s obtained from clients over the previous few years to construct up analytical choices price promoting to business and authorities clients.
“We all know higher than anybody what they’re asking for,” he mentioned.
Fischer mentioned he discovered first-hand how highly effective this sort of suggestions loop could be from his time serving to lead Uber’s Elevate division.
“Uber has knowledge on the place individuals transfer on this planet. They layer totally different merchandise, the bikes, the scooters, the electrical plane, the drone supply. We now have that equal knowledge on what persons are taking a look at on this planet they’re asking of that knowledge,” he mentioned. “It provides us a significantly better purview. And once more. We’re software program first, so I don’t have the burden of getting to pay for {hardware} capital bills.”
A few of these clients will wish to do their very own analytics, just like the hedge funds, Fischer defined. However most are more and more serious about what SkyFi has to supply on the insights aspect, he mentioned.
The corporate plans to make use of the brand new funding to broaden on all this, although Fischer is clearly happy with constructing a product that’s deeply succesful however inherently approachable, to the purpose that even his household makes use of the product.
“My teenage daughters job satellites for his or her highschool, and now school, homework on their iPhones,” he mentioned.
