Heirs Holdings, a pan-African proprietary investment company, has invested an undisclosed amount in US-based Planet Labs, US-based space and analytics company which operates Earth imaging satellites.
Recently, in December 2013, Planet Labs raised $52m in series B financing from investors including existing investors O’Reilly Alpha Tech Ventures (OATV), the corporate venturing arm of US-based media company O’Reilly Media, DFJ, Capricorn, Founders Fund, First Round Capital, Innovation Endeavors, Data Collective, and AME Cloud Ventures; new investors joining the round included technology investor Yuri Milner, Industry Ventures, Felicis Ventures, Lux Capital, and Ray Rothrock.
Tony O Elumelu, chairman and founder of Heirs Holdings, said: “As the only African investor in Planet Labs’ project, we are incredibly proud to have supported such an innovative and dynamic company, which has already achieved significant success. As part of our business philosophy of Africapitalism, we are committed to supporting entrepreneurs and start-ups to enable them to bring scale to their projects and we look forward to following Planet Labs’ achievements over the coming years.”
Planet Labs’ co-founder, Robbie Schingler, said: “We are very excited to welcome Heirs Holdings to our team of investors and thank them for their support. The funding that they and other partners provide is vital for our development as a company and we are particularly pleased to be working with an African company, as our technology has the potential to support Africa’s development by monitoring and mapping the continent’s natural resources and agriculture.”