Constellr Raises Nearly $19 Million in Seed Extension
Constllr, a company developing tech that detects thermal signals from Earth using satellites, has raised 17 million euros (nearly $19 million USD) in a seed extension as it aims for its first satellite launch in 2024. Company officials said the money would allow them to accelerate development on its planned constellation of five satellites, which will begin launching in June 2024 and complete in 2025, though that plan depends on the availability of space on rockets, as well as the last legs of satellite development.
The company also plans to use the funds to develop a new, user-friendly interface for customers to access information from the satellites. The constellation aims to establish a daily revisit rate at an orbit altitude of roughly 332 miles to 351 miles (535 to 565 kilometers), slightly higher than the International Space Station.
“We want to deliver highly precise measurements, which are repeatable in a time series,” Tobias Menne, chief commercial officer for Constllr, told SpaceRef. He said what sets his company’s tech apart from other earth observation satellites is its high accuracy, allowing for an error of only 1.5 degrees Kelvin between measurements — along with a high sensitivity of change tracked within a single image.
Their goal is to monitor metrics such as water temperature and crop activity using thermal imaging, especially for agriculture, forestry, fisheries, aquaculture, and similar industries.
“Many decisions really are based on water availability and on temperature,” Menne said. Constellr will also offer surface temperature and evapotranspiration (how water moves from the land surface to the atmosphere), which Menne said is difficult to access in other companies’ technology.
Various spatial resolutions and temporal resolutions will also be available as required by customers, and other applications could include monitoring the coasts or infrastructure with the assistance of artificial intelligence, Menne added.
Initial funding
Germany-based Constellr was founded in 2019 as a spinoff from the Fraunhofer, a large applied science organization. “They also provided the real initial funding and the friends and family rounds,” Menne said, along with contributing “intelligence and experience” for the company’s early days as a startup.
All told, the company has received 30 million euros ($32 million USD) in funding, including support from NASA and the ESA.
Months ago, the company announced a high-profile, multimillion-dollar and multi-year commercial data contract with the European Commission and ESA for thermal infrared imaging servicing for thousands of European institutional customers. Additionally, the company generated customer interest by completing an orbital demonstration on the International Space Station, according to Menne.
The company has tripled its employee base in the past year – it’s at about 85 employees today compared with roughly 30 a year ago. Constllr has also started to generate some revenues this year from signed contracts, as opposed to 2022 when it were still pre-revenue; the company expects to turn a profit around 2027, pending factors that include market performance and the company’s ability to successfully deploy its constellation.
Additionally, the company is starting to enter the US and Brazilian markets following customer requests from both countries. Constllr established a sales office in each nation about three months ago “to capitalize on the opportunities of both markets,” and Menne said that so far, sales discussions are going well. Geographically speaking, their core markets are in Europe and other key areas of interest include the Middle East and Central America.
