Open Cosmos Ltd., an England-based satellite startup, has raised $50 million in Series B funding from three leading impact investors, ETF Partners, Trill Impact and A&G.
Satellites have proved beyond useful to our everyday lives. Open Cosmos is working to build sustainable, low-earth orbit satellites and their associated end-to-end data management systems. The latest funding is meant to support the company in their effort at making access more democratised through a platform it has built that lets multiple organisations use single satellites, or more typically a constellation of satellites, and (if they choose) share the data they collect with each other.
The systems developed by Open Cosmos have a broad useful life but have largely been targeted towards energy and climate monitoring. When the onboard technology is combined with AI applications, it can effectively measure greenhouse gas emissions and provide data on global temperature trends. From measuring the extent of polar ice caps to tracking ocean currents, the imagery and analysis technology can measure 60% of the 54 essential climate variables.
Open Cosmos satellites contributing to a more sustainable world include MENUT, which launched in January 2023, delivers images monitoring deforestation, wildfire impact, flooding and coastal erosion. Some of the satellites due to launch in the next few months include:
- MANTIS, funded through UKSA and in partnership with ESA, will produce high-resolution imagery to monitor logistics, energy infrastructure and natural resources
- IOD6, in partnership with the Satellite Applications Catapult, which will focus on monitoring the Atlantic coastal and maritime areas
- PLATERO, contributed by Spain, will combine Earth Observation and IoT on the same satellite to monitor biodiversity and provide real-time insights in the context of natural catastrophes
All three satellites feature a multi-sensor design, which will also enable them to join the OpenConstellation, whilst critical data gathered through their monitoring will become part of the DataCosmos platform.
Open Cosmos was initially founded in 2015 and has rapidly become one of the fastest growing companies in the satellite sector. This growth has come in response to the company’s approach which dramatically lowers the costs, complexity, and timescales of missions, and simplifies access to EO data in a way that removes the barriers for all companies.
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