Capella Area raises $97 million to broaden satellite tv for pc information merchandise

San Francisco-based satellite tv for pc imagery specialist Capella Area on Monday introduced the shut of almost $100 million in financing, as the corporate seems to broaden its line of analytics and information merchandise.

Capella raised $97 million by way of a mixture of fairness and debt in a spherical led by NightDragon and joined by earlier buyers DCVC and Cota Capital. The corporate declined to specify its post-money valuation following the elevate.

The enterprise’s enterprise is predicated on combining a special type of imagery – known as synthetic aperture radar, or SAR – with a small, inexpensive spacecraft. The corporate is constructing a community of satellites that may seize pictures of locations on Earth a number of occasions a day. The SAR expertise permits Capella’s satellites to seize pictures at any time, even at night time or by way of cloud cowl.

Capella at the moment has seven satellites in orbit, with plans to launch extra over the subsequent two years. Capella CEO Payam Banazadeh declined to specify his firm’s goal quantity for the satellites it goals to have in its constellation, saying “it is not concerning the variety of satellites you need to put up.”

“It is actually about what the shoppers need – the place they’re at with respect to the work that they are doing with you – and how briskly the market is rising,” Banazadeh mentioned.

Capella, based in 2016, at the moment has about 160 workers.

The corporate’s present constellation of satellites permits it to take pictures of “wherever within the globe” about each three to 4 hours, Banazadeh famous.

Capella at the moment has “greater than a dozen anchor clients,” Banazadeh added, and doubled its income over the past 12 months. The corporate declined to specify what it is annual income at the moment is.