Geosite

Geosite was an enterprise SaaS company that built cloud-native applications for working with spatial data. Its platform aggregated, visualized and evaluated geospatial data drawn from satellites, drones, aerial sources and IoT devices and sensor networks, pairing a data marketplace with integrated data management and collaboration tools so that customers could search, select, purchase, assemble and manage datasets. The company positioned the platform as a comprehensive repository and underlying data infrastructure for the geospatial industry, and as dual-use technology serving both commercial and military users. Its founder described it as the "Google Drive, or Switzerland, of geospatial."

Applications spanned remote operations, infrastructure management, incident response, and logistics and readiness, with business intelligence tools intended for decision-makers, analysts and frontline operators collaborating in real time. In utilities, Geosite's tools combined control and sensor data with weather, crime, disaster and other risk and incident data to help operators locate and respond to outages. By the time of its acquisition, Geosite was described as a SaaS provider of geospatial intelligence to property and casualty insurance companies, with a platform composed of two components: a geospatial engine API called Bedrock and a visualization tool called Ascend, which aggregated and visualized geospatial data to help quantify and manage portfolio risk related to natural catastrophe events. Reported use cases ranged from coordinating search and rescue operations across the United States to supporting climate resilience work in insurance.

Founding story

Geosite was founded by Rachel Olney, who served as CEO. Y Combinator lists a 2019 founding date, while Olney stated in a post following the acquisition that the company was founded in 2018. Olney built the company while completing a PhD in mechanical engineering at Stanford University, where she also earned bachelor's and master's degrees.

Business model

Geosite sold enterprise SaaS software, combining a marketplace for geospatial data and analytics with data management, visualization and collaboration tools. Commercial and government clients accessed the aggregated satellite, drone and IoT data through a subscription fee. Its software was also made available to public-sector buyers through the reseller Carahsoft.

Subscription fees for platform access, alongside government contracts; the company reported $1.6 million in contracts with the U.S. Air Force as of late 2019.

Traction

Y Combinator listed a team size of 40. As of December 2019 the company reported $1.6 million in contracts with the U.S. Air Force and its founder projected $10 million in total revenue the following year. Reported deployments included utilities outage management, search and rescue coordination across the United States, and insurance climate-resilience work.

Latest developments

Descartes Labs announced the acquisition of all of Geosite's operating assets on April 2, 2024, citing revenue growth opportunities in the insurance sector. Rachel Olney moved to lead the insurance technology business within Descartes Labs, centered on Geosite's Ascend product for natural catastrophe portfolio risk. Descartes Labs itself had been acquired by Antarctica Capital in August 2022.