Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. (NYSE: BAH) said Tuesday its venture capital arm is an investor in a $35 million funding round for Albedo Space Corp., a Denver-based developer of low-flying satellites used for high-resolution imaging.
The McLean technology and consulting giant said the investment will support Albedo’s first operational satellite and constellation deployment. Founded in 2020, Albedo has developed a platform to collect imagery with a resolution of 10 centimeters per pixel and two-meter thermal imagery.
Chris Bogdan, a Booz executive vice president who oversees its space portfolio, said in a statement the move is “one of the most forward-looking space investments Booz Allen has ever made,” adding that the optical and thermal imagery produced by Albedo’s technology is “unprecedented in the commercial market” and will allow Booz’s clients to speed their decision-making. Booz sees the ability to leverage space for data collection as a key addition to its business, with the ability to use the data for clients in the defense, national security and civil areas.
“Ultra-high-resolution imagery can be leveraged across a breadth of applications, for everything from urban planning and pipeline monitoring to U.S. and allied military operations,” Albedo CEO Topher Haddad said in a statement. “Our mission is to provide users imagery to see details with clarity to then act with certainty.”
The deal marks the first space-specific investment from Booz Allen Ventures, which launched in 2022 with a $100 million fund and has primarily invested in artificial intelligence companies to this point. Albedo is the venture arm’s ninth investment to date.
New York City’s Standard Investments and Breakthrough Energy Ventures — a Bill Gates-backed firm based in Kirkland, Washington — also participated in the round, as did Shield Capital and Initialized Capital, both of San Francisco, Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Y Combinator, Sao Paulo’s Giant Step Capital, New York’s Republic Capital and other undisclosed participants.
Booz Allen has a long history working on space projects and solutions, including 50 years of support for the International Space Station and engineering an analysis for the Artemis mission, which is intended to reestablish a human presence on the moon.
Spurred by wars in Ukraine and Israel and rising tensions with China, federal contracting giants like Booz Allen are pumping hundreds of millions into their venture capital operations in hopes of staying on top of the latest advancements in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, machine learning, cyber, 3D manufacturing and robotics — and staying ahead of U.S. adversaries.
