Space data companies have long argued that the private sector needs their products, but the real buyers are government buyers. As artificial intelligence becomes a top priority in business today, a Spanish startup is becoming the go-to source of ground truth for businesses.
Xoople (referred to as “Zoople”) develops a constellation of satellites to collect precise data for deep learning models. The startup was founded in 2019 and has spent the past seven years developing a technology stack around data collected by government spacecraft and integrating with cloud providers.
CEO and co-founder Fabrizio Pirondini told TechCrunch that the company has completed a $130 million Series B led by Nazca Capital. Other investors include MCH Private Equity, CDTI (Spanish government-backed technology development fund), Buenavista Equity Partners, and Endeavor Catalyst.
The company announced Monday a deal with U.S. space and defense contractor L3Harris Technologies to begin building sensors for the Xoople spacecraft. The sensors are designed to collect “two orders of magnitude better data flow than existing monitoring systems,” Pirondini told TechCrunch.
L3Harris has built some of the most advanced commercial imaging systems in orbit. But Pirondini did not provide any details about the satellites, other than that the sensors would collect optical data, or even how many the company wanted to build. These systems don’t come cheap, and the company continues to raise funds to fund full development.
Pirondini declined to share his company’s valuation after the latest funding round, other than to say, “We’re in unicorn territory.” The company has raised a total of $225 million.
The company’s focus on data quality is a key differentiator. Still, Xoople is entering a competitive field crowded with several mature competitors that already operate satellites in orbit and develop AI-focused datasets, including Vantor, Planet, BlackSky, and Europe’s Airbus.
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What sets Xoople apart is its focus on enterprise platforms.
“Our business model is to embed our data and solutions directly into those ecosystems so that we can provide those services directly to our customers,” Pirondini said.
Pirondini described use cases such as government agencies tracking transportation networks and damage from natural disasters, agribusinesses monitoring the health of crops, and large corporations monitoring infrastructure projects and supply chains.
Aravind Ravichandran, CEO of Earth observation consultancy TerraWatch Space, told TechCrunch that Xople’s decision to prepare a distribution strategy before acquiring its own data is interesting. For now, it relies on publicly available data, such as data collected by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel 2 spacecraft.
“They laid distribution pipes before creating their own data feed and built it into Microsoft and Esri, two platforms that enterprises, governments and most GIS buyers already use, but neither of them had their own EO data,” Ravichandran said. “Google’s lead in geospatial AI models is the benchmark against which those models will be measured.”
It’s unclear how Xoople will strike a balance between providing raw data and developing its own analytical tools, but Pirondini says he wants to create a “system of record for the planet” and expects the project will eventually include working with partners to develop a true AI world model.
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