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India space tech start-up Pixxel raises seed funding

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  • Suhas Bhat
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Indian space technology start-up Pixxel, which plans to launch micro-satellites to support an Earth imaging software platform, has raised a $5 million seed round featuring Lightspeed India Partners.

Lightspeed co-led the round alongside fellow Indian investors Blume Ventures and GrowX Ventures. Inventus Capital and Stanford Angels also contributed. They were joined by Ryan Johnson, founder and formerly CEO of BlackBridge, a Canadian Earth-imaging company controlled by Planet Labs, a sector leader based in the US.

Founded last year and supported by $700,000 in pre-seed funding from a space tech-themed accelerator program, Pixxel is looking to develop an artificial intelligence-backed software platform that will make it easier for users to understand satellite imagery. It plans to use the fresh capital to hire staff in India and the US.

The company will launch its first micro-satellite in November, with a second scheduled for next year. The plan is to launch 30 micro-satellites by 2030 with a view to providing enterprise customers in oil and gas, agriculture, climate change monitoring, forestry sectors with a globe-spanning imaging solution.

Recent activity in India’s space start-up ecosystem includes Blue Sky Analytics receiving a $1.2 million seed round last month led by Beenext Capital. Blue Sky provides environmental data sourced from public and private satellites.

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