Planet Labs has raised a total of US$95m to help expand its fledgling Earth-imaging satellite business. The Californian start-up said it has closed the bulk of its US$70m series C funding round led by existing investor Data Collective, a venture capital…
Planet Labs has raised a total of US$95m to help expand its fledgling Earth-imaging satellite business.
The Californian start-up said it has closed the bulk of its US$70m series C funding round led by existing investor Data Collective, a venture capital fund, and with participation from new investors.
It also secured a US$25m loan facility from venture debt fund Western Technology Investment.
The financing is significant for Planet Labs, which up until this point had raised US$65m.
The company has also made an executive appointment, naming Tom Barton as chief operating officer. Barton was previously CEO at computer systems group Rackable Systems, now trading as Silicon Graphics International, and has 25 years of experience managing and advising hardware and software companies.
Planet Labs says it has now launched 73 micro satellites as it continues in its bid to image the entire world and bring down the cost to attract customers to whom Earth-imaging services would previously have been out of reach.
In January 2014 it launched Flock 1, a constellation made up of 28 Earth-imaging satellites which Planet Labs says is the world’s largest.
The company’s last launch was on 10 January when two of its microsats, which it calls Doves, were part of the secondary payload on SpaceX’s NASA mission.
In a statement Matt Ocko, co-managing partner of Data Collective, said: “The Planet Labs team has driven their company from a brilliant idea in a garage to one of the world’s top ten overall space powers in less than three years, with customers, revenue, and technological advantage commensurate with that position.”
Planet Labs’ other investors include Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), Yuri Milner, Capricorn Investment Management, O’Reilly Alpha Tech Ventures (OATV), Data Collective, Founders Fund Angel, First Round Capital, and Innovation Endeavors.
Planet Labs was founded in San Francisco in 2010 by ex-NASA physicists and entrepreneurs Robbie Schingler, William Marshall and Chris Boshuizenby. The three previously worked on developing small scientific satellites at Nasa Ames.
The private company intends to use the ‘always-on’ platform to provide frequently updated imagery and open access data that will be utilised for both humanitarian and commercial purposes.
