Google takes lead in funding round for Bengaluru-based space startup Pixxel
Delhi : The first significant investment in the Indian space industry since the government announced its privatisation strategy in April will be led by Alphabet Inc.'s Google, which will provide $36 million in finance for Bengaluru-based Pixxel, a satellite-image business.
The 2019-founded Pixxel is developing a constellation of satellites with the capacity to locate mineral resources or gauge crop productivity by evaluating the spectral signature of a picture. Customers include the agritech firm DataFarming in Australia and the miner Rio Tinto Ltd. Added Pixxel.
Accenture PLC is one of the investors that have contributed more than $71 million to the firm. Pixxel did not state what value it represented. According to Google, the funding for Pixxel came from the company's India Digitalization Fund, which specialises in funding firms with an Indian basis. Pixxel's founder and CEO, Awais Ahmed, predicted that following the investment, the business will be "the most valued space tech company in India."
According to startup tracking website Tracxn, that company was rocket and launch service provider Skyroot Aerospace, with a projected value of $163 million. "We work with satellite data, and Google does a lot of work around that with agriculture and environment," Ahmed told Reuters. They also had Google Earth, thus the two factors combined to give them a boost.
Pixxel is one of the numerous private businesses seeking a boost ever since India opened the space industry, supporting entrepreneurs to provide broadband services like Starlink and to power applications like supply chain tracking. The foundation for the government's private-sector space strategy was unveiled in April.
The cash comes at a time when businesses throughout the world are finding it difficult to raise money. Since Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit launch firm filed for bankruptcy, pressure has increased on entrepreneurs in the space industry in particular. According to Ahmed, the money would be used to expand the company's satellite network. In addition to the three satellites it now has, Pixxel is getting ready to launch six more next year. It also plans to increase the number of engineers working on its analytics.
In a student competition to design a prototype "hyperloop" transport pod, Ahmed claimed that a trip to Elon Musk's SpaceX served as his inspiration for starting a space firm. He and his co-founder Kshitij Khandelwal had the goal of creating an AI model that could utilise satellite data to forecast crop yields, detect illegal mining, and monitor natural disasters.
When they decided that the detail in the already-available, commercial satellite photos was insufficient, they established Pixxel. Hyperspectral imaging, which involves taking in and analysing a wide spectrum of light rather than merely assigning primary colours to each pixel, is a technique used by Pixxel's satellites.
