Private earth imaging startup Pixxel raised $5 mn in seed funding led by Blume Ventures, growX Ventures, and Lightspeed Ventures. The round also saw participation from Stanford Angels and Ryan Johnson, a veteran in earth imaging and CEO at Blackbridge, a Canadian earth imaging company. Inventus Capital also participated in the round. Ryan, ex-President at Planet Labs, one of the largest satellite imaging companies in the world, will also join the Board of Directors at the company.
Pixxel's satellites focus on collecting information-rich data of a much higher quality than today’s satellites. These will be analysed by Pixxel’s proprietary machine and deep learning models to detect, monitor, and predict global problems and phenomena. The funding will be used to expand the team, strengthen technology, and accelerate progress towards deployment of the constellation for the earth-imaging small satellites it is building.