A San Francisco startup building hyperspectral space satellites has raised a new round of funding just a few months after extending its previous Series A round.
Orbital Sidekick announced a $10 million "strategic investment" on Monday that was led by Energy Innovation Capital and also included Williams, ONEOK, the University of Minnesota, 11.2 Capital, Syndicate 708 and In-Q-Tel. It was an all-equity round, the company confirmed to Bay Area Inno.
This brings the company's total funding to $38 million, according to PitchBook. Orbital Sidekick raised a $16 million Series A round in April 2021 and extended it six months later with an additional $7 million.
“This investment by our customers and partners in the energy sector sends a resounding signal to the monitoring and intelligence services marketplace that OSK is leading the space with a best-in-class, scalable solution for supporting sustainable operations,” co-founder and CEO Dan Katz said in a statement. “By bringing on new strategic investors in Williams and ONEOK, we are further strengthening our commitment to providing improved asset monitoring services for energy infrastructure while expanding product offerings that support environmental sustainability and a low carbon future.”
Katz co-founded the company with COO Tushar Prabhakar in 2016.
In April, the company plans on launching the first two satellites in what it calls its Global Hyperspectral Observation Satellite, or GHOSt, system and it aims to have six satellites in orbit by the end of the year that it will launch via SpaceX Transporter rockets, according to TechCrunch.
Hyperspectral space satellites can be used to observe the Earth by producing incredibly high resolution images. The technology does this by reading more wavelengths of light, or bands, than traditional multispectral imaging, which typically reads between three to 10 bands. Orbital Sidekick says its technology can pick up around 500 bands.
The company has 50 employees and has been particularly focused on serving the energy industry.
It says it has monitored over 12,000 miles of pipelines for incidents like methane leaks, liquid hydrocarbon leaks and construction activity. Orbital Sidekick also says it supports monitoring in other industries including mining, agriculture, environmental disasters and defense.
In 2020, Orbital Sidekick also won a $16 million multiyear contract from STRATFI, the U.S. Air Force's private investment arm.
Venture capital firms poured more than $6 billion into space technology companies globally last year, according to PitchBook, and by late October, the total value of all investments in the industry was on track to exceed 2021's record of $6.2 billion.
While Elon Musk's SpaceX raised more than half of that amount, some Bay Area companies were also in the mix.
S.F.-based Capella Space raised nearly $100 million in a Series C round last year, and earlier this month the company announced an additional $60 million in "growth equity" funding.
On Tuesday, Capella Space also announced that it launched a subsidiary called Capella Federal that will cater specifically to government and defense customers.
Palo Alto-based Array Labs has raised $5 million for its own smaller, more affordable satellites for 3D Earth imaging. It was selected as one of Bay Area Inno's 2023 Startups to Watch.
And S.F.-based Astranis has raised close to $400 million through a Series C round that closed in 2021, and it also raised an unconfirmed amount in late 2022, according to PitchBook.
