The city of Rovaniemi, Finland, taken as a radar image from an Iceye satellite at a 1-meter ... [+]
Finnish startup Iceye already has three satellites in orbit, which provide high-quality radar images of the Earth surface. For its customers, these images are valuable because the radar images can “see” through clouds and are useful no matter what time of day they’re taken. Now the company aims to launch four more satellites this year and eight next year, fueled by an $87 million series C venture round the company announced Tuesday morning.
Adding these new satellites “opens up the second category of time,” explains Mark Matossian, CEO of Iceye’s U.S. subsidiary. During an emergency event, being able to detect changes on the surface over a short period of time could be critical for its customers, which include oil & gas companies as well as multiple government agencies.
Iceye’s satellites, which it manufactures itself, produce a type of image from what’s called “synthetic aperture radar” rather than a camera. Using their flight paths, satellites in Iceye’s constellation can simulate an incredibly large radar antenna. This enables the company to produce both two- and three-dimensional images. And the more satellites it has in its constellation, the higher the resolution of the images it can produce.
The company’s SAR images are valuable for a number of different applications, including disaster response, Matossian says. His company’s images have been used to monitor events such as dam failures in Michigan, Hurricane Laura and the current wildfires in California and Oregon.
Google veteran Mark Matossian is CEO of Iceye's U.S. subsidiary.
Iceye was founded in 2012 as a spinout of Finland’s Aalto University by CEO Rafal Modrzewski and CSO Pekka Laurila, who helped develop the technology. The company launched its first satellites in January 2018. Matossian, a veteran of multiple Google projects over the course of 13 years, including the company’s former satellite arm, Terra Bella, became CEO of the U.S. subsidiary this past February.
With the series C round, the company has now raised a total of $152 million. The round was led by returning investor True Ventures and saw capital from companies like Newspace Capital, Space Angels and Seraphim Space. Another significant investor was OTB Ventures, which contributed $30 million to the round as part of its efforts to support European space companies.
“Thanks to Iceye, the ecosystem of space companies in Europe is getting stronger,” OTB Ventures cofounder Adam Niewinski told Forbes.
Iceye isn’t the only startup building new SAR satellites, says Chris Quilty, a satellite industry analyst, but along with San Francisco-based Capella Space, it’s made a large presence in the industry. “Iceye has moved a little bit quicker,” he adds. “They’re establishing a U.S. presence and U.S. government relationships.”
From Martossian’s perspective, this round still represents the beginning of Iceye’s capability and achievements. “Iceye is very much on the steep part of the innovation curve,” he says. “It is not anywhere close to topping off.”
