Actor Leonardo DiCaprio has invested an undisclosed amount in Orlando-based geospatial data company Nuview, according to a company press release.
"Nuview's cutting-edge technology will set itself apart by generating high-resolution, 3D images of the Earth's surface, intending to improve our ability to monitor and protect the planet with much more accuracy," said DiCaprio in a prepared statement. "This unprecedented dataset will help enable scientists, policymakers and conservationists to make more informed decisions and uncover valuable new insights in climate science."
The technology the actor referenced is essentially this: Nuview intends to build the world's first commercial lidar (light detection and ranging) satellite constellation so it can 3D map the Earth's entire land surface for the first time — and then do so annually.
“Our data that we produce from our satellites is mostly used for what people within the geospatial community would call foundational [geospatial intelligence or] GEOINT, meaning it's the foundational level of data that all other satellite data is built on top of — the most accurate,” said CEO Clint Graumann. "We're working really hard to provide good, clean, usable data."
Who uses foundational GEOINT, and how?
The raw data collected by Nuview will be sold to analytics and consulting companies that serve a wide range of entities. For example, “an analytics company further downstream would take our data and tell these Fortune 500 companies, ‘There's this much carbon preserved in this area, and this is how much carbon you need to offset within your organization,' " said Graumann.
One such business Nuview is partnering with is Australian firm Data Farming, a precision agriculture company. “This organization advises major agriculture organizations as well as farmers on what decisions they need to make about their crops using software and satellite imagery and all of these different components," said Graumann. "My conversations there are around sustainability, around understanding the elevation of fields to know how erosion's going to take place.”
DiCaprio’s Nuview investment appears to be part of an ongoing strategic investment approach, given that according to Investopedia.com, the actor has a portfolio of investments that emphasizes companies with an environmental bent. Neat Burger, LØCI, Beyond Meat, Califia Farms and HIPPEAS — all of which he has invested in — are purveyors of vegan or plant-based products that replace products tied to high methane emissions.
DiCaprio appeared at a November 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference to support the Global Methane Pledge, which “aims to catalyze global action and strengthen support for existing international methane emission reduction initiatives to advance technical and policy work that will serve to underpin participants’ domestic actions. Participants joining agree to take voluntary actions to contribute to a collective effort to reduce global methane emissions at least 30% from 2020 levels by 2030,” he wrote on his Instagram account.
Nuview growth in Orlando
The dollar amount of DiCaprio's pre-seed investment was not disclosed. Other investors in the pre-seed round were MaC Venture Capital, along with Broom Ventures, Cortado Ventures, Florida Funders, Industrious, Liquid2 and Veto Capital.
Nuview's Florida location and tech-forward focus may account for the company's ability to raise funds when nationwide VC investments fell by 31% year-over-year from 2021 to 2022. According to Pitchbook Data Inc., a firm that tracks venture funding totals across the country, like a handful of other emerging tech marketings, Florida saw an increase in VC investments to the tune of 2.8%. Statewide, Orlando had the most growth from 2021 to 2022 with a 14% jump.
Graumann said Nuview is hiring for more than 80 new jobs in the high-tech industry over the next few years, with some of those positions in Orlando. He did not commit to a number or percentage of local new hires.
Nuview has been operating since September 2021, according to the company. Nuview announced in May 2023 that it was “exiting stealth mode” and made public that it had secured a contract from the U.S. Department of Defense through National Security Innovation Capital for $2.75 million.
Graumann said the DoD contract did not result from an RFP process, but rather, “it was a joint collaboration between us and them. They were anxious to be a part of what we're building, so there was no [proposal]. We knew that it's important for us to make sure our partners and government stakeholders are aware of what we're building because there's an entire licensing process around putting satellites into space.
"Word traveled fast to the community that we're building something that it has been waiting for, for decades. We started getting contacted by lots of different groups, and it built from there. Relationships developed.”
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