Aurora Insight

Market position

Aurora Insight entered an established wireless network testing and measurement market, competing with players such as Opensignal and Ookla's Mosaik that map network infrastructure and performance by geography and operator. It was also grouped with commercial space-based RF data providers including HawkEye 360, Kleos Space, PredaSAR, Spire Global and Umbra Lab under the NRO's 2022 agreements.

Unlike performance measurement approaches that rely on handset-based data or on narrow bands used by a single operator, Aurora Insight's approach was based on direct, independent measurement of the radio frequency spectrum via its own multi-domain sensor network, measuring multiple types of spectrum simultaneously and covering devices and areas beyond phones and homes.

Technology

A systematic network of radio sensors placed on satellites, aircraft, vehicles, buildings and fixed ground sites continuously samples the full radio spectrum. Signal processing, machine learning and deep learning are applied to trillions of measurements to identify and classify digital signals, producing dynamic maps of infrastructure, utilization, interference and available spectrum. Space assets included a 2018 demonstration satellite and 6U CubeSats manufactured by NanoAvionics carrying Aurora Insight sensors.

Go-to-market

The company operated in stealth for roughly its first two years post-seed, working with a set of early customers, including telecom operators and at least one drone delivery operator, to define the product before publicly launching Ion in October 2019 alongside its funding announcement. It also marketed directly to cable operators, presenting at the CableLabs Summer Conference in 2019.

Mobile network operators and cable companies using the data for network planning and competitive intelligence, other builders of wireless-dependent applications and services such as drone delivery operators, and government and defense customers requiring space-based RF data.

Geography

Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, with the company also identified at a Westminster, Colorado address in 2019 and later at 810 7th Street NE, Washington, D.C. Its sensing ambition was global, aiming to chart communications radio waves across the planet.

History

The company was founded in 2016 and received its first seed investment, led by True Ventures, in 2017 (True Ventures dates its lead seed investment to August 2017; one supplier profile gives June 1, 2017). It launched a demonstration satellite in December 2018 to validate whether its proprietary sensor could detect terrestrial communications from orbit. In October 2019 Aurora Insight emerged from stealth, announcing $18 million in aggregate funding covering both seed and Series A rounds and launching its first publicly available product after two years of working with select customers to define it. Two NanoAvionics-built commercial CubeSats followed in 2021. In 2022 the National Reconnaissance Office signed an agreement with Aurora Insight as one of six commercial providers of space-based RF data, and Maxar Technologies made a strategic investment in the company. Maxar Technologies acquired Aurora Insight, dated to 2022 by investor Promus Ventures and to January 2023 by a supplier directory.

Risks & controversies

Sources note reporting inconsistencies around the company's acquisition date, which is given as 2022 by one investor profile and January 2023 by a supplier directory, and around the composition of the $18 million raise, described variously as a Series A round, a post-Series A round, and an aggregate of seed and Series A funding since founding.