Orbital Insight

Market position

Positioned as one of the more heavily capitalized firms in geospatial analytics; press coverage described it as a leader in geospatial data analytics, and its 2017 Series C was reported as making it one of the most capitalized companies in the sector. By 2023 its commercial position had deteriorated sharply, ending in acquisition.

Fusion of multiple, heterogeneous geospatial data types (imagery, SAR, AIS, mobile location, connected devices) in a single cloud platform, with self-service analytics for non-specialist users and packaged analytic indices such as the Global Geospatial Crude Index.

Technology

Artificial intelligence, computer vision and data science pipelines that ingest and fuse billions of geospatial data points from satellite, aerial, drone and balloon imagery, SAR, AIS, anonymized smartphone location data and connected devices. Imagery was manually tagged to train recognition models. Analytic techniques included shadow analysis on floating-roof oil tanks to infer fill levels, vehicle counting in imagery, and building height and rooftop material analysis to approximate wealth. Outputs were delivered through the TerraScope platform (previously Orbital Insight GO).

Go-to-market

Direct enterprise and government sales complemented by partnerships and distribution arrangements with imagery and data providers — including DigitalGlobe, Airbus (OneAtlas, and the white-labeled Earth Monitor product), Planet Labs, e-GEOS, Thaicom, HawkEye 360 — and with financial institutions such as Bloomberg and RBC Capital Markets that embedded or resold its analytics.

Financial institutions and investors (hedge funds, banks and data platforms), commodity and energy firms, consumer and industrial corporates, insurers, and defense, intelligence and civil government agencies. Named customers include the U.S. Air Force, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Defense Innovation Unit, Bloomberg, Dow Jones, S&P Global, RBC, Honda, BP, Deutsche Bank, Unilever, Mitsubishi, CenterSquare and Dun & Bradstreet.

Geography

Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with additional U.S. offices in Arlington, Virginia and New York City and international offices in Tokyo and London. One listing places the company in San Francisco, California.

History

Founded in 2013 in Palo Alto. In 2015 it worked with the World Bank to improve poverty data using building height and rooftop material analysis. In 2016 In-Q-Tel, Google Ventures (GV) and CME Ventures invested, joining existing backers Sequoia Capital, Lux Capital and Bloomberg Beta. A $50 million Series C from Sequoia Capital closed in May 2017. In 2017 it worked with the Defense Innovation Unit on algorithms for prototype commercial SAR microsatellites and partnered with DigitalGlobe. In 2018 it partnered with e-GEOS on emergency flood mapping for the U.S. government, began supplying vendor analytics to Bloomberg, partnered with Airbus on OneAtlas and with RBC Capital Markets, extended its Planet Labs agreement, and acquired Boston-based computer vision firm FeatureX. A $50 million Series D was reported in November 2019. Orbital Insight GO launched in May 2019 and was relaunched as Terrascope in late 2022; a Thaicom partnership was reported in 2022. Financial distress emerged in 2023, and in May 2024 Privateer announced its acquisition of the company.

Risks & controversies

Reporting in September and October 2023 described severe financial difficulties: having raised about $130 million, the company was said to have devalued itself to $50 million to secure a $3 million emergency loan and to have obtained only $500,000 of it, with leaked June 2023 slide decks showing multiple failed M&A attempts. Its liquidation preference stack was reportedly reduced to one tenth of its prior $200 million level. Difficulties were attributed in part to deterioration of the commercial cellphone location-data market after Apple's App Tracking Transparency and Life360's exit from data brokerage. Coverage alleged the company pivoted to a secretive contract with Indonesia's State Intelligence Agency (BIN) and Singapore-based Grandrich Corporation, codenamed "Project Alpha", involving fusion of surveillance data including untethered access to cellphone location data in West Papua, plus claimed talks with the militaries of Singapore, Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Thailand and Vietnam. In January 2024 a Santa Clara County court ordered the company to pay more than $2.2 million to its Palo Alto landlord after defaulting on roughly $370,000 per month in rent, and its main phone line was reported nonfunctional for months.