Charlottesville-based satellite intelligence company Astraea recently raised $6.5 million in Series A funding co-led by Aligned Climate Capital and Carbon Drawdown Collective. Other participants in the oversubscribed round include CAV Angels, Tydall Investment Partners and existing investor University of Virginia Seed Fund.
EarthAI, Astraea’s SaaS platform, uses geospatial data from over 1,000 satellites to provide insight to companies in clean energy, agriculture, conservation, carbon finance, real estate and other industries. Using AI, ML and cloud computing, the platform allows users to quickly and cheaply unlock and utilize satellite data. The platform has already been used to promote sustainable land use, create solar power infrastructure and monitor carbon offset projects.
“We know firsthand that satellite imagery can be a powerful platform for managing renewable energy assets and other decarbonization projects,” Aligned Climate Capital CEO Peter Davidson said in a statement. “Astraea’s software platform makes it easy to find new project sites, monitor construction projects and manage existing assets.”
Astraea plans to use its new funding to support business development, hire new data scientists and expand partnerships with satellite data providers.
“We are grateful to have Aligned Climate Capital and Carbon Drawdown Collective as partners in this next phase of scaling our business,” Astraea CEO Brendan Richardson said in a statement. “They both recognize the incredible potential for satellite data and analytics to vastly accelerate the energy transition and decarbonize at scale. We couldn’t be more excited to continue this work with their support.”
Astraea isn’t the only geospatial company in the D.C. area to announce big news recently. HawkEye 360 opened its new 19,000-square-foot satellite manufacturing facility in Herndon with plans to grow its team. HawkEye 360 also provides companies with satellite data but focuses on defense, maritime and wildlife protection.
