GV, the corporate venturing subsidiary of internet technology group Alphabet, led a $15m series B round for US-based geospatial big data technology provider Orbital Insight yesterday.
The round also included Bloomberg Beta, the early-stage investment arm of media firm Bloomberg, and CME Ventures, the venture capital division of futures company CME Group, as well as VC firms Sequoia Capital and Lux Capital.
In-Q-Tel, the investment vehicle for the US intelligence community, added an extra $5m in the form of an investment and development agreement.
Orbital Insight’s algorithms work with satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles to count and measure a range of human and geological data, such as cars, roads, clouds or buildings to give users more detailed information.
The series B capital will be used to increase the company’s machine vision and data science staff and further develop its technology, growing the range of detectable signals it can pick up and in particular improving its ability to monitor the global oil supply.
Andy Wheeler, general partner at GV, said: “Orbital Insight has made significant progress in its use of data and satellite imagery for better decision making across a range of verticals, including government, insurance and financial services.
“The team’s expanded product breadth and ability to leverage deep learning techniques to analyse geospatial data and imagery is unparalleled. Orbital Insight has taken important steps in building a better big picture understanding of the world.”
Bloomberg Beta and GV, then known as Google Ventures, also took part in Orbital Insight’s $8.7m series A round in March 2015. Sequoia Capital led the round, with participation from Citizen.VC and Lux Capital.